Photographing Your Art - Part 2. Eliminating Glare

Lighting glare or light bouncing off of your painting can be a problem, but it's easily overcome. The first step is to turn off the flash! YIKES! Beyond that, remember to never put your light source anywhwere near the camera. "Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" - remember that one? If your light source is near your camera and with light bouncing off at an angle similar to the one on which it arrived, it will bounce right back into the lens and you'll have glare in your photos blocking out at least part of your image. I keep my light source near the painting, slightly higher and off to the right. That way the light will bounce down and to the left. If you're photographing a large painting one light source may not be enough to evenly distribute light across the image, so you'll want two lights, one on either side. And it will be helpful to use lamps with shades or some kind of hood so that there's not a direct line of sight from the bulb(s) to the camera lens.
If you have any other tricks to share about getting rid of lighting glare, click just below here on "Comments" and tell us.

Next: Part 3. Minimizing Image Distortion

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