Frances Gynn Paintings: Accurate colour photography

To a painter, colour is a vital part of their work. An artist will go to great lengths to create exactly the right hues and tones for their artwork. When asked to photograph a painting (or group of paintings), it is essential to create accurate colour photography of each hue within the artwork. A colour calibrated workflow from capture, edit and finally delivery to the client ensures that the photography of the painter's artwork displays all the texture, colour and emotion of the original.

To ensure that the final image is colour calibrated and an accurate representation of the original artwork, there needs to be a consistent workflow from capturing the image in camera, editing and exporting for the final media (print, web etc)

My current colour workflow uses all of the following

1. Expodisc to set a custom white balance in camera
2. X-rite Colour Passport to create a custom colour profile and white balance in Adobe Lightroom
3. X-rite ColorMunki Photo to calibrate my laptop screen, second screen and printers/projectors. There is the cheaper ColorMunki Display if you don't do your own printing
4. Print profiles for use with printing companies when outsourcing printing to specialist companies

All of the above means I can offer my clients photography that does justice to their own creativity and hard work.

I was introduced to Frances by my long term client and fellow collaborator Hair Advice Centre Kingsbridge. Frances had an upcoming exhibition at Little Dartmouth that needed photography of her wonderful artwork to promote the event. We decided to photograph the paintings on location in Fran's studio as some of the artwork is almost 3 metres wide and not all of the painting were completely dry at the time.