Photographing Artwork in a Studio for Galleries, Fairs and Auctions

Art-fair week is a documentation rush. Every work that goes on a stand or a wall needs an image for the preview, the press, the catalogue and the sales team, and most of them need it before the work leaves the studio or the gallery. The photographs get made in the last fortnight, usually in a hurry, usually by whoever is closest to a camera.

That is the wrong time to find out the glass is throwing a reflection across the whole picture. This is how to photograph artwork so the image is accurate, consistent and ready to send, and what a studio can and cannot give you.

Flat work: paintings, prints and works on paper

Flat work is a copying problem: the light has to be even across the surface, and the camera has to be square to it. The setup is old and settled, which is why it works.

• Two matched lights, one each side of the work, each at about 45 degrees to the surface, at the same distance and the same power. Even light is the whole job.
• The camera square to the work: centred, level and parallel to the picture plane, on a stand, with a longer lens to keep the edges straight.
• Crossed polarisation to kill glare: a polarising filter over each light (heat-rated film on hot lamps, or use LED sources) and a second on the lens, turned until the reflections drop out. It cuts varnish, glass and gloss, and often deepens the colour, which is why you should shoot a frame with and without it.
• A colour target in the first frame, under the same light, and a white balance set from it. Shoot RAW so the balance can be corrected and not baked in.
• A neutral backdrop around the work, with room to crop. Edges and framing are part of the record.

Check evenness before you shoot the work: put a plain grey card where the work will hang, and read the corners and the centre. The studio lighting fundamentals cover why distance matters more than power, and the camera settings guide covers locking exposure and white balance so every frame matches.

Framed and glazed work is harder, because the glass shows whatever is in front of it, including you and the camera. Dress in dark clothes, hang black cloth behind the camera position, and use the polarisation. If the owner allows it, shoot the work out of its frame as well. Heavily textured work, with thick paint or relief, is the exception to the even-light rule: ask whether the record should show the surface, and if so add a raking frame from one side.

Three-dimensional work

Sculpture, ceramics and objects need a ground that does not compete. A white infinity cove or a seamless white gives the piece a clean edge and a soft shadow, and it is the same reason product photography works in one. A turntable lets you rotate a small work through a set of angles with the light fixed, so the shadows stay consistent. A heavy or large work stays put and the camera moves around it.

• Cover the standard views: front, back, both sides and a three-quarter, and top or underside where the work is meant to be seen from there.
• Add detail shots: signature, edition number, surface texture and any known damage or repair.
• Include a scale reference: a ruler or scale bar in a separate frame, or a person beside the work, so a viewer can read its size.
• Control reflections on metal, glass and glaze with large, soft sources and black or white cards, not by adding more light.

A gallery will forgive a plain background. It will not forgive colour that is wrong, an edge that is cropped off, or a frame that does not match the others.

Installation shots

An installation shot shows the work in a room, which is what a buyer or a curator needs to judge scale. Shoot from the corner and from eye level, keep the verticals straight, and clear the room of everything that is not part of the picture. Include one frame with a person in it. Shoot it in the light the work will be seen in, not the light you would have chosen, and keep the camera settings the same between frames so the set reads as one.

File naming and delivery

The image only helps if the right person can find it. Name every file the same way, for example artist, title, year and view, and keep a single spreadsheet that ties each name to the work's title, medium, dimensions and credit. Keep the unedited originals and a separate set of finished files.

Galleries, fairs, press offices and auction houses each ask for different sizes, formats and colour profiles, and those requirements change. Check the specification each recipient sends, and make the delivery set from it, rather than one set for everyone. Embed the colour profile, and keep a record of which version went to whom.

What Scope offers, and what it does not publish

Studio A is 1,200 sq ft with a white drive-in infinity cove and full blackout curtains. The cove is drive-in and load-in is at ground level through the roller door from the yard. Door dimensions and cove measurements are not published, so send the work's size and weight when you enquire. Studio B is the room within a room, blackout capable and sound treated, with a cove that can be washed to colour or left neutral, for controlled, neutral light on a smaller work. See the photography studio page for both.

In every room but the DJ room, lights are charged separately from the room rate, so please enquire about our lights and we will quote for what your shoot needs. No copy stand or kit list is published, so ask what is on site, and bring your own camera, polarising filters and colour target. Studio A is £160 for two hours and £320 for a half day. Studio B is £120 for two hours and £220 for a half day. Set-up and pack-down are inside the booked time, so budget the hang. You need appropriate insurance, and Scope is not liable for loss or damage to client property, so confirm the work is covered on site as well as in transit. Load-in planning covers the van and the yard.