Tips for Nailing Tattoo Photography

In a world saturated with tattoo artists fighting for their attention, how do potential customers choose an artist they can trust?

They check those artists’ online portfolios - that’s how.

Ultimately, no matter how good your flash designs or technical abilities, your work relies on showing what you’ve made through photographs of your art. But dealing with the difficulties of human skin that’s been repeatedly stabbed isn’t easy - here’s what we’d recommend to get the best possible photos of your work!

Location, Location, Location

The setting or background of your photo is an easy element to forget, but messy backgrounds and garish patterns can easily take away from the visual effect of the tattoo.

Ideally you’ll have a photo wall or corner in your studio, with a plain coloured, matte backdrop and lighting at the ready. It should be in a place that’s kept tidy, and where no one’s likely to pass by and cause a distraction.

Using white surfaces around the tattoo helps to improve the quality of light, bouncing it around the curves of the human body, so consider investing in some white paper or card that you can position tactically around your subject.

What camera should I use?

If you’re into photography, this might be a great excuse to hunt for the best camera for tattoo photography - some artists get incredible results from the expert use of SLRs and specialist lenses!

Generally speaking, wide-angle lenses are great for getting more background detail, or you can use macro lenses for up-close shots. Being able to save your files in RAW format will also make a huge difference when you go to edit, and it’s always worth checking for low-light capabilities if you’re usually shooting indoors!

But for most artists, smartphones will do just fine. Phone cameras are incredibly advanced, often coming with background blurring, image sharpening, timing and adjustable focus capabilities.

The other advantages of using your smartphone’s camera include that it’s always in your pocket, you can edit or apply filters easily with a whole host of apps, and you can post directly to social media without going through a computer.

You can even improve upon your camera’s capabilities with tools like the Sniper Slim Tattoo Photography Set. Built around a panel of 64 LED lights which can be adjusted between 3000 and 6500 Kelvins, you can affect the warmth or coolness of your ambient lighting as well as the Sniper’s light intensity.

The Sniper also comes with a polarising lens that clips to your phone camera to reduce glare and manage reflections. If you don’t want to invest in the full Sniper set but think that would be helpful, you can pick up an ND clip-on lens or polarising film for a similar effect.

Best Lighting for Tattoo Photography

More light = better pictures! Since photographs are made from light, you need a lot to get a clear picture - but you also need to avoid glare and excessive brightness, which might cause you to lose details from the tattoo.

The best lighting for tattoo photography is soft, diffuse and comes from multiple angles to avoid harsh shadows or glare. You ideally want to replicate the appearance of a bright but cloudy day.

Freestanding ring lights and other dedicated studio lamps can help you create better photographs, but keep an eye out for their colour temperatures and intensity to ensure they’ll work well in the unique setting of your studio.

Photographs of Tattoos

During the tattoo, you can help your future self (and your client) by using the correct equipment to get solid saturation without continuously working over the same area of skin. Using tattoo glides like Tiger Spit, INK-EEZE or Hustle Butter Deluxe will help to keep skin as calm, cool and workable as possible, while BIOTAT’s natural numbing products will reduce redness and inflammation.

Once you’ve finished inking, give the skin a little time to relax and bleed out a little. This will help to reduce redness and display your new piece of art in the best possible way.

When it comes to taking the photo itself, you should think about your composition. While the tattoo is obviously very important, part of the art of tattooing includes working with the natural flow and curves of the human body - when you remove this context from the picture, it can look much less impressive. Ideally you should get lots of photos from multiple angles!

Editing your Photos - and when not to

While a little bit of editing is expected, people will notice if you take it too far - all you need is one mistake to slip through and potential customers will forever doubt your authenticity. Add filters, adjust lighting and brighten colours if the lighting wasn’t in your favour, but don’t go any further than that.

Healed Photos

More and more clients are checking your socials to have a look at your healed work! Anyone can make a freshly inked piece look perfect with a little editing, but your skill as an artist is really shown when it’s fully healed and settled.

If you can get a photo just after the tattoo and then another one in a few months, you can spruce the healed piece up a little with Hustle Butter Revitalizing Lotion for a great photo. Of course it isn’t always possible for your customer to come back into the studio, but you can reach out and ask them to take their own healed pictures for you to use.