Photographing Tubard Wilson

So, I was going to show you how I photograph my Artwork.  

The painting of Tubard Wilson is completely dry.  I photographed it before varnishing it and after varnishing it but to be honest I didn't find any difference.  Varnish is supposed to bring out the colors but also protect the painting from dust etc.  Here is my setup.

Yes, this is my porch.  I have the stands with lights and have tried using them in the past,  carefully positioning the lights to each side of the painting but the light on my porch works just as well so why bother with all that setup.  I do like to experiment to find the best way of doing things.  Even with natural light bulbs at the right kelvin temperature you can't beat natural light.  Here you will see my standby camera, an old Canon Rebel Xsi with the lense that came with it the 18-55mm.  It is a little trickier taking a photo of a large painting.  You will also see below I have a "Digital Kolor Kard" underneath the painting.  This gives me known printing colors to edit my image.  Of course you want to take photos in Raw format for the best result.  Use a tripod so there will be less shaking and blurriness.  Fit your camera viewfinder as close as you can to the painting so there will be little cropping needed and that results in a higher resolution.  Note I turned my camera to portrait position to match the painting.  Never use a flash.  I set my white balance to daylight even tho it was shaded.  ISO 100, Shutter speed 1.63 again thanks to the tripod, f11.  Here is the image, scaled down for posting online.  Now I'm looking forward to getting the custom built frame for this painting.  Then I can say it's finished.