Some months ago I bought a proper copy stand and a pair of daylight-balanced lamps, and I started photographing finished sheets with a macro lens instead of holding them up to a window and hoping. The results are honest. You can see the granulation in the cerulean, you can see where the pencil underdrawing sits under the wash. I was rather pleased with myself.

What I did not anticipate is that the honest photograph does not travel. On a small screen, a correct botanical sheet, evenly lit, on white paper, reads as flat and slightly grey. The overexposed window snap with a bit of shadow across the lower third got three times the engagement, because the shadow made it look like a thing in a room rather than a document.

I have not gone back to the window snaps. But I have started taking one deliberately imperfect photograph per finished piece, a corner of the desk in shot, and posting that instead. It is a small dishonesty of framing rather than of colour, which I can live with. I am curious whether anyone else has found the line between showing the work accurately and showing it in a way people will actually look at, and whether the second thing has cost them anything.