Portrait

I got a better shot today. Tripods and better light make all the difference in the world. It is so much less hassle to make reproductions of work these days with digital media. I remember when (said in the same tone of voice as your grandpa telling you he walked uphill both ways to school and home as a kid) the expense and all the hassles of traditional photography slides that were required for pretty much everybody for submitting and sharing work.
These days all you need is a decent megapixel digital camera, indirect light mid day (I find direct sun on the painting tends to over highlight and shadow the brushstrokes, making it look crusty) and preferably a tripod. Use museum setting or turn off your flash. Tweak the levels in Photoshop (or other editing program) to make up for any blue tones from outdoors and you should have a decent file of your work for sharing or reproduction.

Scanners for smaller works make great reproductions too. Actually, you can scan large paintings on a small scanner and stitch them in Photoshop for really amazing quality reproductions. I should make a blog post about that later.