An Enduring Conundrum

Two winters ago my friend Dan Vogel asked me to photograph myself so he could paint my portrait. His painting was beautiful and was recently sold to Tim Victim, the gentleman who administered my first professional tattoo. Sometime shortly after the completion of the painting, I was hired to photograph the painting (of the photograph of myself, haha) to use on bus stop billboards around the city. "How fun and easy", thought I to myself, "to photograph a flat object that won't move."

I was very wrong. Oil paintings are hell to photograph. I was hired by a woman a few months later to photograph her entire portfolio of paintings which were textured and shiny and complex. I nearly turned down the offer because of my experience shooting the portrait of myself.

I don't yet have a solution. The color balance must be spot on to accurately portray the painting. That issue isn't nearly as befuddling as the light. Because it's shiny and textured, oil paint looks different from every angle, no matter how even the light is.

Here's the photograph that I took of myself for Dan to use as reference.



I've made a note that the next time I sit for a portrait, I should adjust my bra straps and reduce the amount of crazy-eye I'm unleashing. Anyway, here are some of the photos that I took of the painting. These are unedited to show just how tricky oil is.










And so on. Below is the shot we settled on. I plan to work on this some more. Still, I think I'll try to get more gigs shooting tattoo artist's work and not so much painter's portfolios.





P.S.- On the link I've put there from Dan's name, you can see a picture of the billboard. Neat!