Below is my setup - a black backdrop to eliminate distractions. Incidentally, this worked well because many of the female artists wore colourful clothing which black accentuates.
The white boxes in the foreground were anchor points - I wanted to photograph the artists from various angles and having 'fixed' positions allowed me to systematically photograph the artists from different angles
The fill light is to the left - a soft box with a screen - this allowed me to put an edge on the subject's right side. By angling it towards the camera, the fill light also succeeded in separating the subjects from the background. The main light was very soft - a double screened 150 cm x 150 cm soft box.
The chair is comfortable and allowed the subjects to relax - nothing worse than forcing subjects to stand against a wall.
Generally, I used f18, 1/200 sec, ASA 200 except for the shots of the subject in the chair where the light fall off made me increase the aperture to f14.
To break the ice I asked each artist to identify their painting in the State Parliament gallery (I had photographed their paintings there the previous week). This worked brilliantly.
I took two shots of each artist - a 'head shot' and a 'seated' shot as I wanted to capture their hands, my reasoning being hands to artists are essential.
