Illuminating artwork

I can’t take the credit for the colours in this stained glass window. They were chosen and combined by a very gifted artist who understood colours very well. But I can offer some tips on how to photograph artwork like this.

First, stained glass windows are designed to be seen by transmitted light. It’s how the colours gain their extraordinary depth and luminosity. So the first thing do do is find a position where you are getting clear daylight shining through the glass.

That’s not always easy. Sometimes the best position for the lighting leaves you tilting the camera, and that’s a big no-no. For any kind of flat artwork like this you have to photograph it absolutely square-on so that you don’t distort the perspective – or at least so that you don’t leave yourself with too much perspective correction later on in your image editor.

Try a longer focal length lens. The further away you are, the less you have to tilt the camera and the less of a struggle you’re going to have with perspective.

That was my first step when editing this image. The next was to emphasise the colours, and I did this in Nik Color Efex, which has some extremely effective colour tools – the Contrast Color Range filter is especially effective at changing the relationships between colours.

But does this image actually illustrate any principles around colour? I think it does. The contrast here comes not from the different colours and how they interact, but from the contrast in luminance and saturation between the glass panels and the framework of the leading holding them in place. I made sure this came out a solid black to emphasis the beautiful luminosity of the glass.