Photographing a glazed painting

[ax2010@eircom.net]

I have been asked to photograph a watercolour painting which shows a local ruined church as it was about 1865. this is for reproduction in a book about the church which will be published shortly. My problem is that the picture is framed and glazed and I am not permitted to remove it from the frame.

From the point of view of lighting, I think daylight on a day of even cloud (of which we seem to be getting a lot recently!) is best. What is the best way to avoid distracting reflections while still photographing the picture from as near straight ahead as possible?

All suggestions gratefully received.

[Hereford_EOS2]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

A polarizing filter is all that I can think of at this moment.
Good luck.

[ax2010@eircom.net]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

Yes, I thought of that and wondered if it would simply give me a less shiny reflection of the camera and tripod. The way to find out is to try it, of course. Thanks for the help.

[amphil007]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

May be better to photograph at an angle then straightened it in photoshop.

[ax2010@eircom.net]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

Thank you Stephen and Phil. I've photographed the painting using both suggestions and I have to say the result wasn't too bad at all. There's no discernible reflection and the only problem is the out-of-square shape; Before wasting time trying to correct that in the processing I'll have another shot at seeing how close to head-on I can come. Then of course comes the really tricky bit of getting the colour balance exactly like the painting.

Thanks again.

[Hereford_EOS2]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

I found this website.
It might be worth reading although everything is generally common-sense.
HERE
It might be useful.

Good Luck

Another possibly useful site HERE and another HERE

[bobowen]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

Take a head on shot to obtain the dimension ratios. Then take a number of shots at an angle of about 45 degrees to avoid reflections. as suggested a Polarising filter can help but watch your shutter speed!
Use your software to adjust your best angled shot to the correct dimension proportions - Photoshop Elements Free Transform works fine.
If you don't need the frame in shot then this is easily cropped out.
Good luck!

Bob

[ax2010@eircom.net]

Re: Photographing a glazed painting

Stephen, thanks very much for those links. The info may be basic but it's very useful to have it set out in sequence and there are a few points it would be easy to overlook.

Bob, that's a good tip about taking a photo head-on to get proportions right. I hadn't thought of it. I will be cutting out the frame.