I’m finally sharing my tips for taking photos of your calligraphy for the Calligraphic Society of Arizona! If you’re struggling with cast shadows on your work, photographing gold, or glass reflections obscuring your work, read on!
You’ll learn a few tricks about how to set up a space to take photos of your calligraphy. Just keep in mind that photography comes with its own set of troubleshooting. You might have to test a few things before you get a shot you like.
This post is directed toward using a camera on a mobile device, but would also work with a point-and-shoot camera.
Before I get into the photo portion I want to share a couple good practices that will save you time and effort. Start with quality work, and make sure it’s camera-ready:
- erase all your guidelines
- sweep away stray particles (and pet hairs)
- check that your lettering is complete — all t’s crossed and i’s dotted!
Here’s an article about creating your first calligraphy artwork. It has tips for drafting your work, as well as erasing all your guidelines and stray marks.
You’ll also want to clear a space to place your calligraphy while you take pictures. The last thing you want to do is damage or bend your final page! So wipe away the ring of water from your paint jar, sweep away the crumbs from your snack, and set your notes aside.
Don’t worry if you don’t get a great shot on the first try. Just like in calligraphy, the first few tries are warm-ups. You’re testing for light, placement, closeness, props, and angles.
Interested in learning calligraphy, but not sure where to start?
How to Use Light When Taking Photos
Use natural light whenever possible. Place your piece near a window on a flat surface and snap away. The best days for photography are actually cloudy days. In most cases, direct sunlight can cast strong shadows or wash out the color and detail in your work. Take a look at the images below. The only editing I did was to crop (cut to size) each photo.
I took the first photo, at the left, in the direct sunlight of a sunny window. At the left inner edge, the frame is casting a harsh shadow over the red matboard. I think this shadow makes it look like the mat is cut unevenly; it distracts me from the letter. Also, so much light is bouncing off the white parts of the artwork that it’s obscuring the colors and blurring the letter a bit.
In the second photo, at the right, I closed the blinds to block the direct light. There’s still plenty of brightness, and now the colors look richer, the letter looks clearer, and the shadow cast by the frame is much softer.
Avoid Distracting Shadows
If you have a light overhead, it will most likely cast a shadow of you and your camera onto your work when you try to take a photo. You can avoid this in a couple of ways. First, move away from your artwork just until the shadow is gone. Then, use the zoom feature of your camera to zoom in a little bit. Keep the zooming minimal here — the more you zoom, the lower quality of a photo you will get.
You could also direct a second light toward the surface of the page, softening the overhead shadow.
Another way to avoid shadows on your work is to prop your work up against a steady surface. This way, you can take a photo of the artwork facing you, rather than from above.
Sometimes you just can’t get around a distracting glare on glass or gold leaf. If you’re a calligrapher, you probably have a piece of paper laying around somewhere.
Hold the piece of paper between the light source and your work. Like taking a photo in the shade, this will diffuse the harshness of the light, turning the glare into a glow.
Speaking of Glass . . .
The final piece looks so sharp in the frame with the custom double mat you cut for it! So juicy, you just have to get a photo. But the glass has reflections in every shot, covering up all your favorite parts of the calligraphy!
If you’re taking pictures of framed artwork, take the glass out of the frame. If removing the glass creates a gap between your work and the frame, you can put the glass behind the artwork to eliminate the gap for the photo. If you scroll up and down the rest of this article, you’ll see that only 2 photos have the glass in the frame!
Pro Tip: clean both sides of the glass before you replace it!
If it’s not possible to remove the glass, then try using a large piece of paper again to diffuse the glare and minimize reflections. Depending on the size of the piece, you may need a friend to help, or a tripod and a timer for your camera!
Take Better Photos of Gold
It’s not you — it’s the gold. It’s notoriously difficult to photograph! I find that the easiest way is to hold the page in one hand and the camera in the other. That way I can play with the angle of the gold to the light source and capture it quickly.
In my photos of gold, I try to show part of it without the shine and part of it glinting in the light.
It’s All in the Editing
I probably take 20 or so photos and delete from there. I start by getting rid of the ones the are blurry or just didn’t turn out. Then, I “favorite” the photos I like the best.
From there, I go back through the photos to make sure the main subject of the photo is actually my work, with no distractions. By the time I’m finished “starring” and deleting, I’m down to 3 or 4 photos I’ll use (and that much more digital storage left).
I said at the top of this section, “it’s all in the editing”, but I don’t mean to now make LOTS of adjustments to your photos. The purpose of taking the time to set up the photo, and of taking multiple photos, is to get as nice of a shot as possible without the aide of editing. If you’ve done some photo or video editing in the past, then you probably know that this is a step you really want to minimize! So the edits I suggest are simple: cropping and brightness/contrast. That’s all I use. Okay, fine, I use Photoshop to erase pet hairs from my photos occasionally.
Bonus Tips for Taking Photos of your Calligraphy — because we all know I can’t stop at just 5
Add a human touch. Consider other objects to include in the photo. People are drawn to calligraphy because of its handmade nature.
Try including your hands holding the finished piece, or show some of the tools you used to complete it. Help the viewer envision your work in their space by including common objects near it, such as a book and a coffee mug.
This one’s a little picky, but try to make the straight lines in your image as horizontal and vertical as possible. Like calligraphy guidelines, these will help the viewer feel more grounded.
Or, intentionally take the photo on a diagonal so that the viewer expects it to look angled and doesn’t search for groundedness.
Taking photos of your calligraphy will take practice. You’ll find what works for you. I encourage you to be spontaneous and try new things.
I don’t remember taking this photo of the initial tracing in pencil. There’s a certain time of year when sunlight hits my desk. I guess I just had to get a picture of the way it framed the sketch.
Hopefully, these tips will help you get around things you’ve been struggling with when taking photos of your calligraphy to post and share. What you have to say is important. If any of these tips helped you, tag me in your photo on Instagram, I’d love to see it!
Let us do the writing.
Save yourself some time and materials and let us handle your next DIY gift.
Click below to share details about your project idea and we’ll walk you through it!