I love my photographer. He makes me look good. Of course, he’ll always say that the subject of the photograph is the most important ingredient, but I’ll tell you – it’s not an easy task to take great pictures of sculptural artwork.
Photographing paintings is a cinch by comparison. My painter friends just drop off their work, and their photographers hang them on the wall, adjust the lighting and they’re good to go.
But with sculpture, you have thousands of angles to work with. First, you have 360 degrees all around, plus all the angles depending on the height of the camera placement. You could easily drive yourself crazy and spend an insane amount of hours trying to get each shot just right.
Jim and I work together on my photo shoots. Sometimes I see my work differently from how he sees it and we might have to negotiate to decide on which side of a particular sculpture is the best. Jim’s been photographing my work since the beginning of my career, and it does get easier over time. Slightly.
But the time spent is well worth it and the results are always spectacular, as you can see by the images on this site.
And our work was recently featured in an excellent blog post by Kesha Bruce on the importance of artists using professional photographs of their work on their websites:
Is Your Art Website Killing Your Art Career?
I am so fortunate to have such a talented, amazing photographer. I’ll give him much of the credit for my successful art career, since more people see images of my work, rather than experiencing them in person. To me, it’s the best investment a serious artist can make.
Jim McLaughlin Photography
Queensbury, NY
518-792-5175
