[Aquanet] Portraits of African Americans....??

Mon Oct 15 11:27:18 EDT 2007

I have a great commission. I was asked to do a portrait two african american children.

As with all my commissions I do the photo shoot for reference materials and I have found that asking them to wear white on top creates a lovely visual effect. But I am second guessing whether this is still the right choice for dark skin. I am afraid that the white with black skin may be too great of a contrast. 

What are your thoughts and experiences and what artists should I look for for ideas on what they should wear?  I looked at Mary Whyte who is well known for her
portraits of blacks indigenous to the south but these are are not formal portraits.

Thanks...Miriam

*************************************************************************** 
Artist website : http://www.MiriamSchulmanStudio.com

Subscribe to my art newsletter!
Powered by groups.yahoo.com 

Miriam Schulman
917-750-5664 cell

----- Original Message ----
From: Barry Lindley <bdlindley at sbcglobal.net>
To: NitaLeland <nitaleland at woh.rr.com>; miriam <miriams0 at yahoo.com>; aquanet-list <aquanet at cleverwhiz.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:42:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Aquanet] Digital Cameras

You can also get strips with white, mid-value neutral gray, and black (QPcard).  They can be used easily in Photoshop, as well as Paint-Shop Pro and camera RAW converters to improve color balance. 

see

qpcard.se 

Barry

Barry D. Lindley 
Paintings and Drawings 
www.aristotle.net/~blindley

----- Original Message ----
From: NitaLeland <nitaleland at woh.rr.com>
To: miriam <miriams0 at yahoo.com>; aquanet-list <aquanet at cleverwhiz.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 5:05:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Aquanet] Digital Cameras

DIV {
MARGIN:0px;}

I agree with Miriam about using the white strip, although it's recommended to also have a gray strip alongside the artwork. When I was adjusting the digital artwork for my new book, the ones that used a Kodak color and value scale, available at photo retailers, were a snap. Those that had white in the painting were pretty easy, too. But paintings that are all color have to be edited manually and that's risky when you haven't seen the actual work. 

It also makes a difference how your monitor shows the colors. Monitors vary greatly. My Dell flat screen is fantastic, but the screen on my Sony Vaio laptop has a definite blue cast to it--no way could I edit artwork on it without calibrating first. 

I judged the Montana Watercolor Society show this year and when I was out there last week to judge awards, they told me they are going digital next year. Many shows are doing this. So artists had better start learning how to do digital or find a good photographer who can do it for you. For what it's worth, I discovered that just about everybody who has a digital camera claims they are professional. Several artists had to have their work reshot because it was so poorly done. Some of the problems were pictures out of focus, poor exposure and no white/gray card to color correct by, bad alignment, mats included, backgrounds included (lovely driveway, that), and shot at lower resolution than the camera is capable of. The best resolution for print in books is 300 ppi. Most digital cameras come set at the next to highest number for resolution so you can get more files on a card. You can get great pictures for most purposes, but it's
 best to go to the highest for printing. 

It isn't a good idea to enhance a submission for a show, as they tell me they will be on the lookout for that. And just incidentally, consider entering this show next year. It hasn't been discovered yet, so there are fewer entries than some of the bigger shows--and the award money is good. 

Nita

Nita Leland
nita at nitaleland.com
www.nitaleland.com
http://nitaleland.blogspot.com 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: miriam 

To: aquanet-list 

Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 5:25 PM

Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Re: [Aquanet] Digital Cameras

PS the trick to taking "good" photographs of paintings is the white balance control.
I tape a piece of white paper next to my art. My camera is on a tripod ( good investment)
In the free Microsoft picture manager tool that is on my computer I select "enhance color"
An icon appears that I place over the white paper and click. It tells the program that it should be white so it takes out all the pink in the photo. Then I crop everything out in picture manager and hit "enhance photo" that should bring everything very close to actual painting. I have Adobe photoshop but the free program is better.

*************************************************************************** 
Artist website : http://www.MiriamSchulmanStudio.com

Subscribe to my art newsletter!

Powered by groups.yahoo.com 

Miriam Schulman
917-750-5664 cell

----- Original Message ----
From: miriam <miriams0 at yahoo.com>
To: aquanet-list <aquanet at cleverwhiz.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 5:20:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Aquanet] Digital Cameras

 I loved my compact 6mp Kodak for everything but I felt ridiculous
bringing it to my photo shoots ( reference photos for portraits)
and recently upgraded to 10mp Nikon40dx

I originally thought I was going to get a Canon because they are "the best"
but the Nikon was so much more user friendly.

But I must say that at the end of the day I do not see a noticeable difference
in the pictures between the kodak and the nikon. The Nikon has better zoom
control. The kodak has better macros. btw my kodak was only $250 ( now you can get 8mp for that) and my Nikon set me back $1000

soooo.....for you it sounds like you just need the highest megapixel non-slr
that they have now you will be fine.

*************************************************************************** 
Artist website : http://www.MiriamSchulmanStudio.com

Subscribe to my art newsletter!

Powered by groups.yahoo.com 

Miriam Schulman
917-750-5664 cell

----- Original Message ----
From: Roy Boston <roy at boston.net.nz>
To: Pam Pate <ppate at multipro.com>
Cc: aquanet-list <aquanet at cleverwhiz.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 4:58:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Aquanet] Cannon Power Shot G9

Pam Pate wrote:
>
>  
>
> I have been doing a little comparison browsing----the internet is such 
> a great tool!!!  I like what I see with the Cannon Power Shot G9.  It 
> has 12.1 MP, 6x optical zoom, auto & manual focus and supports JPEG & 
> RAW files.  (Is RAW uncompressed or like TIFF?)  That is a new one for me.
>
>  
>
> Anyone familiar with this camera?  The price is perfect!!!
>
>  
>
> Thank you Annette & Nita for the input.
>
>  
>
> Pam
>
>
> Hi Pam,
I have used the G9 and it is a very good camera for the sort of 
photography you envisage - another camera (out new last month) is the 
Panasonic Lumix FZ18.  I own one of these and it is very good too - 18x 
optical zoom, 8.3 Mp etc. -
 might be a little cheaper than the Canon.

Yours

Roy In New Zealand
Aquanet mailing list
Aquanet at thedigitalbraintrust.net
http://lists.thedigitalbraintrust.net/mailman/listinfo/aquanet

Check out the Aquanet web site:
http://www.aquanetart.com

Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story.
Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. 

Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. 

Aquanet mailing list
Aquanet at thedigitalbraintrust.net
http://lists.thedigitalbraintrust.net/mailman/listinfo/aquanet

Check out the Aquanet web site:
http://www.aquanetart.com

____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. 
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.thedigitalbraintrust.net/pipermail/aquanet/attachments/20071015/9695b9f8/attachment.html 