01Documentation & coverage for museums
Registrar-ready documentation for permanent collections, promised gifts, and rotating loans, plus coverage for member previews and public programs, for museums and institutions in New York.
A museum doesn’t document a collection once. New acquisitions arrive, promised gifts need a baseline record before they’re formally accepted, works rotate on and off view, and loans go out and come back, each one needs its own accurate, current file. We photograph individual works the same way for an institution as we would for any archive, with color-accurate hero and detail views, consistent lighting across the set, and files named and organized to match however your registrar or digital asset management system expects to receive them.
It isn’t only the permanent collection. Member previews, curator walkthroughs, and season-long programming need coverage too, the same evening energy a gallery opening gets, scaled to an institutional calendar. We wrote the long version on what a DAM actually asks a documentation file to do.
Different departments usually need the same shoot to do different jobs, a registrar wants exact files for the DAM, a curator wants images that hold up in a catalog, and marketing wants something usable for the museum’s own channels. We plan around all three before we shoot, not after.
See pricing →02What it costs
Collection documentation uses the same three tiers as all our artwork photography. Essential, $50 per piece. One color-accurate hero shot. Standard, $85. Hero plus two hi-res detail shots. Gallery, $150. Hero, two details, and a short video clip. Program and preview-night coverage runs on our event rate instead, at $350 an hour with a 2-hour minimum, editing included.
Sorting out procurement before a shoot date gets confirmed? here’s how that step usually runs. Museum collection outside the city? we make house calls in Fairfield County, Westchester, and the Hamptons.
03The work
Oil, works on paper, glazed pieces, miniatures, documented under consistent light for registrar files, catalogs, and archives. All shot by us.
Step 01
What’s being documented, what the files need to match on your end, and any procurement steps to clear first. You get one clear number before anything is booked.
Step 02
On view, in storage, or in a study room, wherever access allows. Consistent lighting across the set, hero and detail passes per piece, the polarized rig on anything behind glass.
Step 03
Named, organized files with dimensions on record, delivered digitally within ten business days, ready for the registrar, the DAM, or the catalog.
04Questions from institutions
Yes. We can supply a W-9 and a certificate of insurance ahead of a shoot. Institutional bookings often run through their own procurement step before a shoot date is confirmed, and we’re used to working alongside it, send us whatever your process needs and we’ll get it back to you promptly.
Yes. A promised gift usually needs its own baseline record before it enters the collection. We photograph it the same way we would any other work, color-accurate hero and detail views, dimensions noted, so the file is ready to sit in the record however the acceptance process eventually resolves.
Both. Collection documentation is priced per piece. Preview nights, curator talks, and public programs run on our event rate, $350 an hour with a 2-hour minimum, editing included. A season of previews can be scheduled as a set rather than booked one at a time.
Every institution runs its own process for access and approvals, and we don’t assume we know yours. Tell us what your team needs signed off, and by when, and we’ll plan the shoot date and on-site logistics around it rather than the other way around.
We name and organize every file per work, with dimensions and visible details noted as we shoot. If your DAM has a specific naming convention or folder structure, tell us in advance and we’ll deliver to it directly, rather than handing you a renaming job.
What’s being documented or covered, who the files are for, and any procurement steps we should know about. We’ll reply like humans with one clear number and a date.