Is photographing your own artwork a fit for your creative needs?

Perhaps some of this information will help you decide if photographing your own artwork fits how you operate as a creative professional.

Photographing your own artwork requires financial and time expenditure for training in digital photography and digital file management as well as financial expenditure in equipment. I personally feel learning to photograph and manage my own artwork digital files has been an asset in functioning as a professional artist. I’ve been doing so for 3 years

 I use a Nikon D90 which is moderately priced digital 12 megapixel camera. I purchased it for $900. I found a good used tripod at $150.

I had already been taking monthly lessons from a professional photographer and graphic artist learning applications of Adobe Creative Suite; Photoshop, Bridge, InDesign and Illustrator. She charges $100 for a 2 hour lesson. That has been a $5,000 expense over 4 years. I did this to learn how to create my own printed and web digital promotional material. When I purchased the D90 she began instructing me about how to photograph and manage my artwork as well as my photography references for my painting.  I first used CS3 as my graphic and digital photo management software. I purchased it at a student discount for $600 when I was taking a 3 credit, art marketing course at our local community college. My Children chipped in to purchase a student version of CS5 for me for Christmas.

I have also been able to utilize YouTube tutorials to learn the functions of my D90 and Adobe CS.

My choice of graphics software dictated my choice of computer and operating system software. I run Windows 7 Pro $150 on a multi drive gaming PC because you often need several applications of Adobe CS open at once. There is your largest financial expenditure. A multi drive gaming laptop with a decent will set you back $1,500 to $2,500. Because my husband and I run 2 businesses out of our home, investing in office equipment is a way of life. We couldn’t operate either business without it.

It’s been wonderful to be able to quickly shoot, download color correct and crop a digital image of my work in one to two hours. Oregon’s many overcast days offer perfect defused lighting for photographing artwork. I can get a well exposed digital image by shooting my work setup on a student easel in outside daylight that is not in direct sun.

The first 6 years I operated my art business, I delivered my work to professional photographer. There was considerable expense and turnaround time. I had to I had to wait until the work was fully dry, make visits back to check proof and was never really satisfied with the color of the images in comparison to the original. My photographer charged $350 per image to shoot and color correct my digital file

The tradeoff has been that my professional photographer could provide me with a large 300 to 400 MB file. The largest file I can get with my D90 is a 40MB file. Initially, I was selling Giclee’ reproductions of my original artwork as large as 24x30 inches which requires large digital files. For the price required to for me recuperate just my expense of the larger reproductions, attendees at art fairs were more interested in purchasing a small, affordable original piece of art if they were going to make an expenditure of that amount.

I’m told a good printing facility can overcome this limitation with computer software that can enlarge a smaller 40MB digital file to produce large Giclee’ reproductions. I have not tried this yet. I use my 40 MB files to print 5x7 note cards as well as 8x10 and 11x14 Giclee’ reproductions on my Epson 2200 which we purchased for $1,000 about 8 years ago. It still produces excellent Giclee reproductions after 8 years of heavy operating.

Interesting insite from LinkIn Arts

An established artist blogging at Linked wrote about her surprise that her gallery thought it necessary to ask her to stay for the entire 3 hours of her artist’s reception. She came away with the feeling that this simple courteous obligation was not the practice of some of her colleagues.

She gave an interesting admission from an established artist for emerging artists, like me about some fortunate individuals who seem to not quite appreciate their available marketing venues. I have been able to jury into only 3 galleries as a regular exhibitor. Two have closed in the past 2 years along with several of our cities largest, influential galleries in PDX. My galleries didn’t have the financial means to represent their artists in any way that excluded the artists themselves from doing a significant amount of the marketing for their solo and group exhibitions. These were not co-op or vanity galleries. These were local business, doing their best to stay in business in very hard economic times. Regular exhibitors did everything from providing food, paying for entertainment, sending out personal invitations to their personal purchaser’s lists. I’ve always made it a personal goal to send a thank you card to each purchaser of my art. Many of us also helped in the painting and maintenance of these galleries. Some artists also kept hours for the gallery owners. The only apparent differences between a co-op vanity gallery was there wasn’t a fee or dues involved in exhibiting, a challenging submissions process that one would expect from a gallery trying to turn a profit and these particular galleries didn’t require exclusivity because of their inability to truly represent their artists until they and the artists began turning a considerable profit.

These galleries were very reputable in my estimation. I never had to wait for payment of a sold work and when they closed they made sure every artist with work on their premises was informed of the decision. Definite closing dates were communicated. I heard of no disgruntled artists not being compensated or doors closing before artists could collect their work. I heard such stories associated with some of the large galleries in PDX that many Oregon artists aspired to being involved with.

Being early and staying for your entire reception was never communicated by my galleries but always expected in the minds of each individual artist as well as the other things I’ve mentioned to try to ensure a successful exhibition.

Much of my art income has come from exhibiting at local art fairs. For the 1st time in several years I made the alternates list of high traffic, well established show I’ve come to depend on. I’ve always treated my art fairs in the same respectful manner as I treated my galleries. I emailed back after I was emailed my notification of being on the alternates list to communicate my appreciation of the show and my commitment to being ready and willing to jump into action if a chosen exhibitor should find they unable to participate. The committee person’s answer was back was discouraging but made perfect sense. In 2010 there was considerable change over in organizers of the event as several committee people retired. The organizing committee was literally over whelmed with the numbers of outstanding, professional artists who entered this year. They chose the very best artists out of all who entered to exhibit at this year’s fair. I realized by what she communicated to me that I was extremely fortunate to even make the alternates list. I’ve made sure to communicate with her again this past week, as this is the scheduled time for artists to pay their booth fee. She emailed back thanking me communicating back; she complimented me for doing so and made me feel that my efforts may be rewarded.

It has been very easy for me to extrapolate that due to the closing of so many established galleries in our state, many of which have been in business for decades, that suddenly the venues of art fairs are being flooded by established artists who are scrambling for venues to market their art.

Living in the state of Oregon where there is such a tremendous number of highly talented professional fine arts and crafts people and few venues by which to we can market out art locally has caused a majority of Oregon artists to fully understand the privilege of participating in fine art venues.  I believe we collectively have a high respect of those who risk time and financial means to make those venues available to us.

My message to my artist colleagues; your returning purchasers are struggling to put food on the table and gas in the car. Your galleries may be risking their financial future to keep their doors open. As professional artist and marketer Jack White often writes in his column for “Professional Artist’s Magazine”, “Treat your galleries and collectors like family.” Hopefully we artists treat our families the way we would like to be treated so that treating our collectors and galleries like family is a good thing.

Stepping out of the Yellow Pages into the 21st Century

Anna Lancaster Fine Art is the new name for my existing fine art business, Abiding Art. I’ve been a professional artist for more than 10 years. Abiding Art came to fruition during age of phone book directories, hanging up a shingle and getting to work. The venues of opportunity have grown and changed as I have found my creative voice. Abiding Art isn’t obsolete. Abiding means long lasting, dependable, to stay and accompany through generations. Anna Lancaster Fine Art is my name, my work, my brand. Abiding Art is my philosophy.

However, wow! So much work to update a business name. Well as an artist my name is my brand. But with 3 portrait commission deadlines hanging over my head, this is busy work at an inopportune time.

My friend Susan Bein, Photographer & Graphic Designer took some photo’s for me for the home page of my website rebuild. Here are some of the proofs. I liked so many of what she took. It’s hard to choose. Check out her website