I've never taken much of an interest in photography or received any formal training on the subject. Sure, I can travel the Grecian Islands, take several hundred photos, and get a few really great images. There isn't really much challenge in taking great photos if the scenery is stunning. It is more challenging, for me, to take photographs which effectively convey information about my painted work.
It was certainly challenging to get the light just right, in order to see the painting without glare or reflections. I achieved some fairly successful results. My favorite part of the whole ordeal, by far, was photographing the paintings with props.
The experience reminded me a bit of the work of this week's featured artist Sabina Nieto. Sabina tends to create "occupiable spaces" in her collages. She wrote, "...Otherwise ambiguous destinations for the wandering eye are provided windows, walls, vanishing points, or horizons to register where you are..." Similarly in photographing my paintings, I'm drawn to the idea of creating imagined environments, in which the painting seem to fit much more naturally than they do when they exist solely as well lit objects, in a sterile environment. The addition of domestic do-dads and bobbles seem to, in Sabina's words, "[make] these spaces richer by becoming more specific.—equipped with hiding places, beach blankets, a make-shift armchair . . . one could ask, 'May I make myself at home?'"
What are some of your favorite props for photos: mustaches, sunglasses for your dog, vintage items?
How satisfying to think of creating a still life around and outside of the painted landscape . . .
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