The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork [Paperback]

Roger Saddington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2003

Shoot your work like a pro!

Whether you're entering your paintings in an art show, compiling your portfolio or simply documenting your art, you need flawless pictures of your work. But how do you get professional slides without buying expensive equipment or paying a photographer?

With The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork, you'll learn how to use materials you already own to produce quality slides of your art. Photographer, artist and teacher Roger Saddington shows you:

• What kind of camera, light and film to use for optimum results
• How to capture the nature of your work, whether it's two- or three-dimensional or has other unique qualities
• The best way to set up a studio
• How to avoid common problems such as poor framing, camera shake, glare, color casts and more!

In The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork, you'll find all the secrets and surefire methods you need to produce professional, accurate slides and prints of your art.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

OK, so you're ready to start entering art competitions or preparing your first portfolio: how best to photograph your work and come up with the good slides essential for success? Saddington presents a step-by-step approach, starting with cameras (conventional 35 mm more accurately depict art than digital), lights (halogen work lamps are cost-effective alternatives to professional photography lights), and other equipment, then progresses to light setup and camera angle. Wisely, he does not presume that painters and sculptors understand photography, so he begins with brief explanations of aperture, lens, shutter and shutter speed, and exposure, then discusses single-lens 35 mm reflex cameras; automatic, two-lens instamatics; and digitals. Along the way, readers will learn about building and using a light stand; employing a light box for viewing slides; and controlling reflection and exposure. Saddington's primer is an excellent resource for shooters of all skill levels who want to effectively photograph two- and three-dimensional artworks. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Roger Saddington gained extensive knowledge of art reproduction during his five-year tenure at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. He teaches a popular class on photographing artwork and lives in Prahran, Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books (May 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581802838
• ISBN-13: 978-1581802832
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,059,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Visual Reference ... Too General with Information, May 29, 2004

By 

J. Wong (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork (Paperback)

This is a decent book on photographing artwork -- but not the the most comprehensive. The strengths of this book are that Mr. Saddington (1) discusses the use digital media, and (2) makes the process of photographing artwork very user-friendly by providing great visual references throughout. The user-friendly aspect is the book's strongest selling point, especially for artists who are new or novices at photography, or visually oriented (i.e., no patience for reading instructions that come with few or no pictures). Mr. Saddington's book provides pictures of what makes a bad negative exposure/photograph, and provides a concise explanation for these results, and does the same for an example of a good negative exposure/photograph. He also provides illustrations of setting up equipment and artwork for photographing. The weakness of this book lies in the general details provided ... unfortunately, Mr. Saddington provides a limited amount of helpful hints and leaves out specific details for for problem shooting ... I base this opinion on my comparison of this book with a book called "Photographing Your Artwork" by Russell Hart. If you buy Mr. Saddington's book, I'd recommend supplementing it with the purchase of Mr. Hart's book. The two books complement each other. Where Mr. Saddington's book lacks in details, Mr. Hart's book fills in the information gaps. On the other hand, Mr. Hart's book is very text heavy and has very few illustrations ... so if you're a visually-oriented person, Mr. Saddington's book would easily compensate in the area of illustrating this very important process. Again, Mr. Saddington's book is decent, but it should be used as a supplemental reference, especially for the visually-oriented person.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly out of date., June 26, 2007

By 

Gregg A. Puckett "Spend2muchOnAmazon" (Southern CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork (Paperback)

Although the information given was essentially correct, it was not up to date regarding use of digital cameras.

This book should have been thoroughly updated before being reprinted.

Regards,

Gregg Puckett

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not enough information, February 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Quick & Easy Guide to Photographing Your Artwork (Paperback)

Actually I give this book zero stars. It is one of those books that pads the pocket of the author but is stingy with the information it gives. It is too general and does not really deal with problem solving the technicalities involved with taking slides of your own art. I wanted to know on which side of a slide to place a mask. The book failed to give this important piece of information. I found that I had already bought a more comprehensive book, so I feel that I wasted my money buying this book.