Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of photographer Charles Jones by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of photographer Francesca Woodman by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

When I first stumbled on a little exhibition at The Photographers Gallery in London I had no idea I was about to discover an artist who would tip my ideas of photographic and artist possibilities into another dimension.

I loved most of the images I saw, and there were more than just a few. My friend sensibly bought the book accompanying the exhibition. I didn't. Later when she came to stay I asked her to bring her copy along as I wanted to photocopy a few pics for my scrapbook of ideas & influences. It was only when I had earmarked nearly every page in the book that I realised I had to have my own copy. Which I promptly bought next time I was in London, down from Edinburgh. I spent weeks waiting until that next trip, terrified that the book may have sold out.

Why do her images make me swoon? They are playful. Sensuous. Ephemeral. Mysterious. Possibly deep and meaningful. They play with light, texture and pattern. They use natural light. They are driven by ideas. They use simple props and spaces. They are about seeing what is there lying around in new ways. They feel as though they each contain a story or a metaphor. They are unpretentious. They are undeniably an entirely individual voice.

Many people try and deconstruct the meaning and intent of her work, conjuring up long winded explanations and truly complicated motives. I like to think that her images are much simpler than many art critics suggest, more like beautiful photographic poetry. Why? Due to her down to earth approach as shown here - when asked by a friend why she obsessively photographed herself, Woodman replied: “It’s a matter of convenience, I am always available.”

I still have a stupidly difficult time picking my favourite Francesca Woodman images. Below is, believe it or not, an edited selection. Some of these may be NSFW:

All images are copyright the Estate of Francesca Woodman.

There is finally a film with her as the subject, 'The Woodmans'. Here is one review. Naturally I am keen to view it.

More Francesca Woodman links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Woodman

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Photo by Arty Smokes

So the paintings are finished and ready to go to new homes and you want to record your work for posterity. How to do this professionally at home without needing studio lights.

What you will need

The photography setup

Wait until your painting dries.

You will get the best photos of dry or nearly dry oil paintings. If the oil is still wet, it will shine in areas and the oil remaining in the painting will reflect light differently than the dry areas of the painting.

Go outside on a bright overcast day.
This is crucial. I've tried bright sun. I've tried shade. I've tried bright days and dull days and I swear every combination in between. I can say from experience that the best conditions to get beautiful rich colour and no glare on your painting is a bright overcast day. What's that? Basically a sunny day with lots of clouds. Colours around you should appear normal, not dull. Shadows should not exist or if they do they have soft edges. Once the edges of the shadows turn hard, it's too bright and you will get glare spots on your paintings.

Position the painting at 45 degrees to the sky, facing the sun (ie north here in Australia, or south for most everyone else).
I think both perfectly upright and laying flat on the ground also work too, but this is the setup I found was ideal for me. Place a sturdy support (helps eliminate shake from small and not so small breezes) at 45 degrees to the sky, cover with a black cloth to reduce color interference, and put the painting on this.

Point the camera straight at the painting.
Fill the camera view with the painting as much as possible. Use every pixel possible! Remember to tilt the camera slightly down to match the angle that the artwork is leaning - this will help minimize distortion. Check in the viewfinder to see if all the sides of your painting are parallel to the viewing edge. If not, your camera is at a different angle than the painting. Fiddle until you get this right. Also, remember to set the tripod up so that your shadow is not on the painting as you stand over it!

Camera tips

• Use the largest image setting possible for your camera to get the highest resolution images
• Set your camera's ISO to its lowest native setting to ensure the least amount of image 'noise' - aim for 50 ISO
• If you can, lock the SLR mirror up as this will reduce camera shake as the shutter fires
• Use a self timer if you can to eliminate any camera shake as you press the shutter button
• Always bracket exposures - huh? Take shots slightly on either side of what your camera says is the ideal exposure as it's not always right for each picture
• Don't rely on auto focus to get it right, sometimes a small manual tweak does the trick

Post processing in your digital darkroom, aka Photoshop

Once your shots are off your camera and on your computer, compare them at full size for colour, focus/blur, contrast etc to choose the best one.

If none of the images are quite right, take the time to re-shoot your painting. This is your archive. It's worth getting right. Once the paintings have gone to their new homes it's next to impossible to borrow them back to re-shoot them.

With editing, often you will find that a small increase in contrast is all they need. Sometimes a small amount of colour correcting can go a long way, too. This is where that grey card shot comes in extremely handy. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel - download this free and super helpful kick ass pdf by one Michael King on how to use a grey card to colour correct artwork.

Always save your images as tiff or psd for maximum information retention. Only save them as a jpeg for emailing once all edits have been done as the jpg format is so small because it throws out fine detail information. Always keep a tiff or psd version somewhere so you can archive your image without any loss of information and re-edit in the future.

Useful links to peruse

http://artlinkswap.org/photographing_art.shtml

http://emptyeasel.com/2007/01/19/how-to-photograph-your-artwork-for-a-portfolio-or-the-internet/

http://michaelking.ca/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Grey_Card_Tutorial.pdf

More art technique articles

This article is one in an ongoing series of technical articles for artists, all archived together and accessible from here. The topics range from details on materials, to the business of art, to specific art techniques. Please make use of this resource.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to beauty in urban decay by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Pic by designwallah - flâneur

The original photography group that first turned my head and made my brain pop with the discovery of a world of artists fascinated with the concept of urban decay and beauty in detritus was on Livejournal. The group is still going and still my favourite of the urban decay type photography groups that I know of.

These people go out and photograph what is around them in the streets, not out in the fields or forests. So rusted dumpsters, abandoned houses, leaves mashed onto the road and broken gates are the subjects instead of waterfalls, blue sky and magnificent trees. And no people.

It was my reaction to these photos that alerted me to my interest in texture. So many of these pictures rely on the complexity and randomness of the textures. I've since noticed that many of these photos that appeal to me also play with subtle colour variations (a part of the attraction of texture) and have an emphasis on line. Many are quite graphic and abstract. And many are 'simply' the result of someone walking around the neighbourhood with the ability to see what is before them through new eyes and use composition well.

What I particularly like about the LiveJournal group is the skew toward smaller scale compositions, and the emphasis on texture, colour and line. As opposed to most other sites on urban decay which have beautiful photos of abandoned buildings lit in a mesmerising manner as the photo above demonstrates. I think this style is stunning, but what really gets me hooked are examples like the first three on this post.

This interest in urban decay photos began about ten years ago and I quickly adopted my own version which involved me pointing a fat camera lens really close up at rocks, squinting into tree bark and being chased away by loopy owners of rusting metal contraptions lying on the road. I was trying to shoot textures and build up a library. At some point I expect that this interest in texture will fully spill over into the paintings. And that will be fun.

This whole post was sparked off by the realisation that it's SoFoBoMo time of year again. I'm not participating this time as the cookbook is on the go and that is quite enough, but if you'd be interested in a self paced and self directed creative project, it's really neat. Go check it out.

And how does SoFoBoMo relate to urban decay? It was this interest in photography of the small scale, using found objects and an artistic eye that led to the Found Creatures theme of SoFoBoMo last year.

More urban decay photo links

A few more interesting urban decay links:

Abandoned island town off the coast of Japan

Urban decay Flickr stream 

A few 'best of' collections of abandoned building urban decay photos:

WDL

Smashing Magazine

Digital Photography School

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.