National Gallery of Canada - Photo Studio

[Manfred M]

I had the opportunity to visit the National Gallery of Canada's photo studio earlier on this week. Here are a few shots and descriptions. They have two full-time photographers (one has been working there for over 25 years and the other for just over 7 years). It's a double studio, so two photographers can be at work at the same time.

Anything that goes into the permanent display or is put on for exhibition is photographed . Equipment is Fujifilm GFX 100S cameras (one is used in conjunction with a Cambo view camera), generally with a 120mm lens (~90mm full frame equivalent), Generally they use Broncolor flash with a powerpack (as opposed to monolights). Shooting is all tethered into a Mac laptop, running Capture One. These are connected to Eizo computer screens. Most post processing work is done in Capture One and images are moved to Photoshop, when necessary. Manfrotto tripod and geared head is used.

For photographing paintings, small reflectors with barn doorsare used and they are placed fairly far from the artwork. A "raking" light is used to reveal the brush strokes. Large softboxes, close to the artwork would not show the textures from the brush work.


This is one of the setups.






Here is a view, back at the work station.






This is the setup used to photograph three-dimensional objects. The sweep is not seamless paper, but rather a piece of grey melamine (a bit darker than neutral grey). Advantage is that it does not wear out or tear when objects are placed on it. A single overhead softbox is the primary (and often only light sources). There is a black flag to control the light hitting the sweep.








Of course my favourite shot was...

[pschlute]

Quite fascinating, and a side of photography few see.