In response to Tajana — It’s worth the cost to have professional photos taken of your work, for many more reasons than just putting them in a catalog (which has its positive reasons too). In today’s day and age while technology can create high-resolution images for ourselves, it doesn’t replace the skill and technical know-how of professional photographers who can put your artwork in the best lighting, adjust the gamut of colors to match your original colors, managing any glares on the surface of your work, etc.. If you look around or network with other artists in your area, I’m sure you’ll find a couple different art photographers who could give you professional quality photos of your work for a reasonable rate.
I have a high quality camera for use in other projects, but having a professional take photos of your work enables them to view your work objectively.
The many other reasons to have high-quality and professional photographs of your artwork:
– submitting images to juried shows or to galleries in which you’re interested in representation
– providing color-accurate high-res images to a printer of giclee prints or if you ever want to make reproductions of your art
– if you sell your artwork online, you want the image of the product to be of the utmost quality
– publicity – if you ever get featured in a magazine, newspaper, documentary, etc, you want your images to be the best they can be
– documenting your work & inventory
I didn’t mean to write such a long post — your sentiment just echoed something that I had thought a couple years ago, but came over to the other side after talking with many other artists, Alyson, and getting to realize the vast difference in quality between a professional photographer and my pictures taken with my iphone, or even my camera. Unless you’re already a professional artwork photographer, in which, none of what I said above applies. Best of luck in your work 🙂