Once upon a time, I did a lot of art capture—primarily for the artists to have good quality images of their work for their portfolio and for exhibition submission use.
As PJ said, the biggest problems in capture are how to obtain the same colors in the photographic reproduction as are in the original art (in the film days, this was a freakkin' nightmare) and all the usual concerns of doing small and large scale copy work with respect to proper lighting, elimination of glare, etc etc. Whether you need a larger, higher resolution camera for the job has to do with what the clients' end purpose for the photographs might be. If the originals are 30x40 inch and they want to make same size 30x40 inch reproduction prints from the photographs, you're going to need a lot of pixel resolution to achieve the detailing of the original ... if that's important. However, if the goal is to make more modest repros and the target isn't necessarily such a high resolution output, you can get away with a lot less. Regards licensing, if they are looking for the photographs as a means to generate reproductions for sale, then you are looking at an exclusive license with open reproduction/redistribution rights, or you want them to buy the originals and rights to use them at their need. At which point you set your price for the job based not on a time-based license use but on the hours it takes to complete the job to spec, the equipment needed, and the amount of revenue you might expect from license sales of the photos. Generally speaking, unless you have a license from an artist to make reproductions of their original art for re-distribution, you can't resell or license them anyway. I usually just figure it as an hourly billable job and retain only the rights to use the captures in my portfolio and marketing efforts, giving the client full reign to use the products of the job for whatever purposes they deem important. I deliver the products, as described in the contract, to them and that's that ... I retain a copy purely as backup, not as part of my 'stock in trade for sale and licensing.' If they need additional work done with them by me after the fact, that's just more billable hours if/when it comes up. My overriding notion in maintaining good client relationships: Keep It As Simple As Possible But No Simpler. Funny, I think Einstein said something like that about cosmology... :-) G On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Christine Nielsen <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, and happy spring! > > I come to you again, seeking wisdom... I've had an inquiry from a > client about photographing artwork (painted canvases) for the purpose > of creating prints... for sale. A couple of issues come to mind: > > 1) The actual photography... I'm assuming hi-resolution is the name of > the game here. Not sure yet how big they want to go with prints... I > think some of the actual canvases are fairly large (30 x40?) > themselves. From the research I've done, I'd think my K-5 is up to > the task... Should I consider renting a larger-format camera? > Alternatively, at what point should I consider 'stitching" images > together for large pieces? > > 2) Rights. So, this where I really have no idea... my standard > agreement doesn't provide for the sale of my images by clients. How > does that work? I'm reading up - > http://asmp.org/tutorials/licensing-guide.html has been helpful, btw - > but has anyone out there ever taken on this kind of project or > provided that kind of license? > > Any thoughts or experiences you have to share are very much appreciated. > > Thanks in advance, > > -c > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
