The best way I’ve found is to use off camera flash. You need two speedlites or strobes but I’ve gotten ok results with one.

The technique is described here: http://mgreerphoto.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-photograph-artwork.html

For smaller photos I’ve used the floor with the camera on a tripod pointing down.

That article is a nice writeup, but it doesn’t adequately address the glare issue.

To get rid of the glare completely and fully bring out the natural colors and contrast of your original, you have to put polarizer filters over your lights and a polarizer filter on your lens. I’d use tungsten lights (set your camera white balance for tungsten) in inexpensive metal reflector lamps that you can get at a home improvement store rather than an umbrella set-up. Position one lamp on either side of your original work as shown on the Matt Greer site of the previous post.

The polarizing filters over the lights must be oriented the same direction and the polarizer over your lens must be oriented perpendicular to the direction of the polarized lights. You can get polarizer gel sheets through B&H or any of the big online photo retailers to put over your lights.

I used to work in a photo lab/studio that used this setup for reproduction shots. It works beautifully.

There’s a couple of advantages to photographing old photos vs. scanning them.

1. If the photo is framed, it may be difficult to get it out without damage to the frame or photo, especially if it is old. You can photograph it inside the frame.

2. I have trouble getting photos on a scanner clean enough. I always end up with dust/lint defects in the final scan that I have to then clean up in Photoshop. Doesn’t seem to matter how much effort I put into cleaning the scanner and photo. This dust doesn’t seem to show up when photographing it.

As for Bill’s suggestion to use polarizers, I’ve never had an issue with glare without them. The placement and angle of the lights is critical.

I’m sure I saw Derrick Story demonstrate this on a video but I searched all his videos on his site, Youtube and Lynda.com and couldn’t find it. He was using two Canon speedlites without any modifiers. How can I have such a detailed memory of his technique if it didn’t happen?

I knew I wasn’t crazy. I did see Derrick Story demonstrate this. He just posted a new article on his site about it. The movie I saw was part of his off camera flash course on Lynda.com.