I'll start this new topic, although it is related to most of the old ones bellow, there's a new thing I would like to discuss separately. And I would certainly love to hear Mike's opinion.
As many of you, I work with long distance commissions and use photos to discuss the WIP with my clients. One thing that keeps bothering me is that the photo of my work never looks like the real one. Not even close. I try to adjust colors etc., of course, but it always seems to be worse than the painting in front of me. I assume people who work Alla Prima may have less problem, if at all. But my paintings are built with layers, with lots of transparency. To naked eye it makes very good 3D effects, which are all lost in the photos. I am pretty sure the cause is that the camera sees what our eyes cannot see. Like astrophotos that show colors in the sky, the camera shows some undesirable colors in my paintings. Sometimes subtle ones, but it really bothers me. So yesterday I did a test and put my hand in front of the painting I am currently working and took a shot. Somehow the presence of my real flesh tones made the flesh in the portrait look more natural. I started to believe that the CCD of the camera calculates an average when shooting. So when you shoot only the painting it calculates every spot of colors that it sees (remembering it sees much more than our eyes) and produces unreal results.
OK, I know it sounds a bit confusing so let me show you what I am trying to bring out. The first image is a photo of the painting in progress (the best I could manage to get) with it filling the whole field at the moment of the shot. The second one was taken with my hand in front of the painting. See if you find how the 2nd one looks more natural.
http://antcarlos.com.br/upload/regina-wip5.jpg
http://antcarlos.com.br/upload/regina-compare.jpg
So now I wonder if this is a nice method to fool the camera when taking pics to discuss with clients. Of course I'll have to go through other tests, but I am sharing with you. Maybe someone out there has the same problem.
Ant