In the past I used to do quite a few photo shoots for artists. These days most 2D artists I have worked with tend to photograph their own work. Smart phones and a well light room are usually sufficient to get pretty good quality images needed for their web galleries etc. Most artists now have basic tripods or lights too. The main reason I am asked to assist these days is when artists want to get more carefully colour calibrated images of their work. That is when a reasonable DSLR camera is ideal. Shooting the images in RAW format makes it much easier to adjust the colour calibration in post production. Having a colour calibration tool like a ColorChecker Passport also helps with this. Most artists do not have one of these.
Colour calibration can be quite important for some artists, especially when they want to prepare an image for Fine Art Giclee prints. Even with colour calibration tools, it is also quite difficult to evaluate this on a screen. Especially cheaper screens that have not been colour calibrated for additional colour accuracy. Generally using a screen for the first preparation of the artwork is probably needed unless you are lucky enough to have a well calibrated proof printer at your disposal. A good DSLR, RAW images, a ColorChecker chart, a colour calibrated monitor, Adobe Lightroom and a little time is usually enough to get a pretty good result. A couple of strobes and softboxes also helps a great deal.
I have also been asked to produce larger scale reproductions of original artwork. This has been done by taking multiple pictures of their artwork with a Macro lens and then knitting all the images together in Photoshop. Enabling artists to produce larger scale high resolution reproductions of their work.
Below are some client artwork images.
