Art season is officially upon us in Dubai — galleries are buzzing, new exhibitions are opening every week, and there’s inspiration waiting around every corner (and canvas). I have had quite an extensive experience with photographing art – Art Fairs, Art Galleries, and documenting various art pieces.

The galleries are often quiet, atmospheric, and filled with light that behaves differently in every space. Photographing them is not just about documenting what’s on the walls—it’s about capturing the relationship between space, art, and viewer. Whether you’re shooting an opening night, doing a clean documentation set for an artist, here are a few things to keep in mind when photographing art galleries.

1. Learn If Possible About The Art Space/Exhibition

The best way to interact with art would be if you understand its meaning and the aim of the gallery to showcase it. Is it a collection of collaborating artists? What combines with what? Is it a solo exhibition? What did the artist want to say with their creations? Is this a gallery for classic art or modern art? If artist is present at the scene, definitely pick their mind about inspiration and vision.

2. Check For Sharing Permits

Before anything else, get permission first – from the gallery, the artist, or the event organizer whether you can share these images on your own websites/internet spaces. Not all works are meant to be shared, especially if they haven’t been publicly released or are part of a sensitive series.

3. Lighting Is Important

Gallery lighting is designed to flatter the art, but sometimes unfortunately they have no idea what they are doing. Expect a mix of spotlights, soft shadows, reflections, and sometimes strange color temperatures.

Here’s what helps:

• Shoot in RAW so you can tweak white balance later. Try to get it as close as possible in the camera first, or even bring a color-checker.

• Adjust your exposure carefully – spotlit pieces can blow out easily. Sometimes it is a good idea to shoot exposure brackets.

• Watch for reflections, especially on framed or glass-covered works. Polarizer with help some when shooting from 45 degrees angles, but front reflections can only be dealt with by using a black-sided reflector.

4. Composition

As a rule of thumb when photographing individual works you would need to cover:

• Front shot with a piece of the floor for the scale reference
• Both sides shots (angles) with a piece of the floor for the reference
• Front shot close up with about 10% of the wall
• Side Shots close ups with about 10% of the wall space (close-ups)
• Optionally a shot with a human standing by the artwork for scale or passing in front of it

Keep close attention to alignment and centering. Make sure there is some negative space left (best to check with the artist or the gallerist on how much space they want).

5. Gear

Although, the images we capture for the galleries often end up on the smallest pdf list of works and some social media promotion, it is still quite important to shoot them in as high resolution as possible.

Ideally, you would need:

• A full-frame camera – to get maximum details of the available light
• Tripod – absolutely non-negotiable. Most of the times I had to shoot the galleries to be able to maintain ISO 100, the shutter speeds have to go to 2 or 3 seconds
• Polarizing filter – I almost never shoot without it – helps with oil painting glare and glass-framed artworks (also brushed concrete floors)
• Wide-angle lens – here is the place where you probably going to end up using that 15mm
• Medium range lens – like 24-70 with which you can shoot all the angles of the artwork
• Macro lens – useful for particular projects
• Reflector – god forbid you would need to use it without the assistant
• Some kind of device to show client what you are shooting from time to time

6. Settings

I can’t decide for you what should be your white balance or shutterspeed, but the rest is pretty universal. Keep the ISO low, keep the aperture around F11 (good luck with the dust in the sensor), and adjust the shutterspeed accordingly, maybe even a little bit over exposed (depending on the mood).

7. Editing

Here comes another tricky part – you would most probably spend 3 times more time editing and cleaning up your photos than creating them. Usually all the cables, doors to the offices, weird windows, cameras, plugs and what not need to be removed in post. If you are not ready to do this, either find a retoucher, or don’t even agree to this kind of job. All the works have to look the same from every angle even though they usually don’t as they tend to catch the light from one side more than the other. Wall-colours also have to look the same, even though sometimes the lighting is mixed. Good luck in any case.

8. Shooting the Exhibition

If you don’t know where to start – follow the principle of shooting every wall first on its own, then every corner, then the whole space within the reasonable angle, the details, and then the relationships between the different artworks.

9. Perspective

I tend to shoot most of the gallery shots from a tripod positioned just below my head-level. The reason for that is because most galleries want the photos to reflect the point of view of the gallery visitor, and most people in this country are shorter than me.

I wonder if there is a standard procedure of how to hang artworks in Europe or America, if they are a bit higher there since the people are taller there but I haven’t researched the subject.

10. Pay Attention To The Colours

I wish that the cameras were perfect in capturing all the array of colors and nuances but often they are not. On top of that, the artist might see the colours differently from you and tell you that this blue should be purple. Even if you are 100% sure it was blue, you have to make the artist happy and tweak it to the colour they want.

Shooting art galleries and art spaces are not rocket science but it does require quite some specific approach.

Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for stopping by.

Anna