The first in a series on How to Sell Your Art work online - Photographing Your Work.

Selling your art on the Internet - Part 1

(this is for artists who are starting out and need to do this themselves with not much money)

Selling my art work is probably the hardest task I have ever had to do as an artist. Painting is easy!

Most artists encounter this problem when they start out and many for years and years thereafter.

I recently read a Hub about selling art work to galleries. This is an entire new ball game! I am still licking painful wounds from the experiences I have had, but I’m not ready to give up.

Selling work online involves a lot more than just having access to the internet and a computer.

I have a number of tips and LOTS of what not to do’s (I learned the hard way) I have decided to create this in a series as there is a lot to add.

Today I will start on what is required first and foremost – Photographs

It is not worth even considering this option to sell work unless you have beautiful clear photographs in high resolution format.

I am not a photographer. Everything I know I have taught myself, and it is all practical so please ignore the absence of photographic terminology.

I have a small Sony digital camera with 7.2 megapixels. There are obviously many other cameras out there and in my opinion, used correctly, you can get a great photograph with most from about 5 megapixels.

If you are a wealthy or fortunate person who has access to a photographer then this problem is solved, however I as with most artists find that I do EVERYTHING myself to try and keep my costs as low as possible.

Taking your photographs

1. You need good light, not direct light. The best time for me in South Africa (and I say this because the light is so different in other countries in the world) is a slightly overcast day. This helps avoid directly glare but offers a surrounding light that is so important.
2. Photographs need to be taken directly in front, centering in on the painting.
3. Ensure that in your viewfinder, the edges of your painting are lined up with 2 sides of the view finder. Irrespective of the size. Try and get in as close as possible so as to fill the frame, but ensure that you co not cut off edges of the painting. Do not use a zoom!

Take a few pictures and see what the light looks like on the photo. Move your painting if there is a glare. Ensure that the colors are as defined as they are in the painting. Do not adjust the image to make it look “better” than the colors that you have used, if you want to sell the original painting. Very importantly, if you use metallic or reflective paints or items on your work, ensure that these do not reflect as it will distort the image and your buyer may not be too happy if the painting looks different to what he has paid for.

Preferably do not use a flash unless you have a fancy camera that can bounce the flash off the ceiling or somewhere other than your painting. My flash is right in front and does not move around. I learned a little trick that works! I have a white ceiling in my studio so I set my camera up on a tripod in front of the painting and balance a small cosmetic mirror on the shutter ( the zoom thingy) just under the flash, with one hand and push the button with the other. The flash then bounces in the mirror off the ceiling creating a great light for the painting. It takes some practice but it works like a charm!

1. Once you have all your photographs they need to be cropped, and adjusted on your photo editor (I use Microsoft Picture Manager and Photoscape (this is a free download and can be found at the attached link)
2. Rename all your photo’s indicated name and size like this Sunray120x100x3.5. This will save you hours on your uploads.
3. Save all your photographs in a file which you can subdivide into categories.

Paintings

• Faces and figures

> Sunray120x100x3.5

. > BNC200x910x2

• Animals

>760x500x3.5

Then copy this entire file again and call it

Paintings WEB.

Go through each photograph and resize it to Web large size. This album will be used on sites that have size limits. It reduces the pixels of the picture. Always keep your original ones for sites where you can sell prints of your art work.

I will continue from here in my next hub.

Happy photographing!