Don't Bring Me Down (Photography Pep Talk)

Here we are..back into the art journal and now I am trying to incorporate my photography into the journal. I like how this page turned out. So I still get to paint..I still get to journal and I can take pictures, print them out and get them into the book. Not too shabby for my art ADD mind.

So now that we're talking cameras pretty regularly here, I thought I would show you the quick set up I use to take pictures of my artwork. I prefer to take a photograph of the journal rather than scan the page in. If I scan it, I lose depth..the photograph looks more realistic to me.

So did you ever get your portrait taken in front of a big white seamless background? I make a mini seamless for artwork that needs to be photographed using a big sheet of white paper. This is especially good if you are shooting something that has to stand up..like a card or a figurine because the background will fade into the photograph. If you are taking the shot form the side view, this is a great choice as well.

Face the paper towards a window. Use as much of the ambiant light as possible (unless you have a flash that you can adjust the amount of light it gives out, turn off the flash completely).

If your exposure is correct, taking a picture like this requires little or no adjustments post processing. If you are a little under exposed, you can easily lighten the photo until the paper appears white.

Shooting your artwork does not require a big fancy camera, just a little creativity with the lighting and know how. Get your camera manual out and learn how to disable that flash- your life will change and you will be posting glare free images of your art in bloglandia for everyone to see in no time! (Note: The shot above was taken with flash to show the Stardust pen glitter that is there. My flash fired at 1/64th of it's full power and I bounced it off a nearby wall at camera left. If I did not have anything metallic on the page, I would have shot this with the ambient light only.)

I am taking pictures pretty regularly now so I get a lot of time to experiment and practice with lighting. You should too! Fill up those memory cards, study the results and see what you like best. Put some images on your blog and leave me a link..I would love to stop by!