Ideally, when you are photographing artwork you’ll want to get it out from under the glass. But the real world sometimes creeps in, and you might have no choice for various reasons.
Art under glass
You may need to photograph artwork under glass because the work is fragile. This could be due to the age of the materials. Or it might be the fragility of the medium used. Pastels come to mind as the chalky material can be brushed off with the lightest of touches.
Whatever the reason, if you are forced to keep the glass, there is a way to make it happen.
Reflections
One major problem is dealing with reflections. Even if the glass is museum grade — which many pieces are not due to cost factors — glass will yield reflections of what is in front of it.
I’ve found if you place black paper covering the entire area in front of the art the reflections are gone. Cutting a hole in the paper lets the camera lens peek through. You may need to do a little post production cleanup if the glass on your lens appears as a reflection. If you use the lighting setup I recommend in this article, you should not even have to deal with that.
Camera lens punched through black background paper from Savage kills reflections.
Rear view of camera through black background paper.
Final post-production
There is one other issue involved with photographing art under glass. Most glass, especially inexpensive glass, has a slight color cast. You’ll need to make color corrections with the artist on hand to make sure the color matches the artwork underneath.
If you have any questions about this process, let me know in the comments. Make sure you check out my previous article on photographing artwork for a clean lighting setup and this follow-up article to ensure a successful shoot.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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