Painting from Photographs

Painting is difficult. Painting from photographs is even more difficult because cameras do not perceive the external world in the same way we do. There are similarities, to be sure, else we would not recognize photographs as replicas of that world. But there are significant differences between what a camera records and what we see. Experienced painters understand these differences and work around them in various ways. Student painters, particularly beginners, are often unaware of the differences and as a result produce unconvincing paintings when they attempt to copy exactly what they see in their photographs. This is true for both landscapes and people. (No one I know paints still lifes from photos.)

What are the main differences? The perception of values, color, and spatial relationships.

Values
Painters use the terms value or tone to describe the degree of lightness, or luminance, possessed by a given color or a specified object in a scene or image. Value range refers to the gamut of values found in a given scene or image. For convenience, painters have arbitrarily divided the full value range--which encompasses an infinite number of tones-- into a finite number of steps, usual five or ten. Some paintings, notably those of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and other devotees of chiarascuro, have a broad value range, from the black of deep shadows to the near white of bright light.

Caravaggio, The Entombment (detail). As with most of
Caravaggio's paintings, this one has a broad value range,
from black to nearly pure white.

But most painters prefer a more limited range of values. Paintings in which lighter values predominate, as in Pissarro's below, are said to be high key.  

Pissarro, Hoarfrost. A high-key painting in which the darkest
darks are mere accents and the shadows are mid-range in value.

 Paintings in which darker tones predominate, as in Sargent's interior painting below, are--surprise!--said to be low key. 

 

Sargent, A Venetian Interior. A low-key painting in which most values
are in the low to middle range, and the lightest notes are confined
to small areas so arranged as to move the eye through the painting.

The term tonal range describes the range of values that a camera or other optical device is physically able to perceive under various lighting conditions. Today's digital cameras have far greater tonal ranges than film cameras but they still cannot capture the full range of values that the human visual system routinely perceives. Nor can they adjust as quickly or as subtly as our brains do to rapid changes in luminance. In all but the most intense light, we humans can make out details in deep shadows that can be nearly or mostly lost in photographs. We can also see details in brightly lit areas that are washed out in most photographs. 

Some correction in the darkroom or in software is possible, but the results, however otherwise satisfactory as images, still do not faithfully record what you actually were able to see in the field when you took the picture. The best you can hope for is the closest possible approximation.

Many digital cameras now feature an auto-bracketing feature where they take one shot using the camera's automatic settings for the scene, then take second and third shots one stop above and one stop below the standard. Using Photoshop or a comparable image editing program, you then can combine the three images to produce a single image that shows good detail and saturation throughout the value range. If you do a lot of painting from photographs, I highly recommend getting a camera that supports auto-bracketing, along with image-editing software that enables you to merge the exposures

The three following photographs were taken using the automatic bracketing feature on a Canon G12 camera. 

This image represents the Canon G12's automatic exposure
for this scene. The light areas are okay, but detail has been
lost in the shadows. Scenes of this type, with extreme value
contrast, are ideal for either automatic or manual bracketing.

Underexposing the image by one stop increases detail and color
saturation in the brightest area but loses all detail in the shadows.

Overexposing the image by one stop retains detail in the
shadows but washes out the bright area, which happens
to be the center of interest.

The following photograph was created using an image editor to merge the three preceding exposures above into a single image. The merged image retains detail in the shadows without washing out the bright center of interest. This is the image that should be used for a painting.

Color

Cameras do not render color in the way our visual system does. The algorithms, or set of rules, used by digital cameras to convert perceived light into colored pixels differ not only from those of our brain but among each other. And the best cameras, with the most sophisticated algorithms, are still incapable of matching the spectacular color sensitivity of the human visual system. 

All colors in nature are modified not only by the amount of light shining on them, but also by reflected lights bouncing off adjacent surfaces, creating a multihued radiance--an ambient glow--that a photograph cannot replicate. Cameras are capable of capturing the more obvious reflected lights, but not the myriad subtly nuanced reflections that alter the color of everything in small but gorgeous ways. 

Even if you are a professional photographer using the finest equipment available, you must deal with the built-in color biases that all digital cameras (and film, for that matter) have. Experienced photographers have done this for years, first in the darkroom, now in digital image editors. Even so, cameras, scanners, monitors, printers, and image editors all have color biases of their own, which is why our photos can look different when viewed on the monitor or printed. The solution is to synchronize all your devices so that they use the same standard for representing colors. This can be a hassle, but its a chore you definitely should do if you do want accurate color for purposes of entering shows, displaying on a website, or creating prints.

Spatial Relationships

Photographs do not convey accurate information about spatial relationships. Cues provided by binocular vision are totally lost. Other spatial information that people subconsciously absorb and process simply by being in a place is also lost. For example, atmospheric cues, such as the tendency of objects to become paler and cooler in hue as they recede into the distance, are rendered crudely. Using image editing software, you can adjust color balance, hue, and saturation to something very close to what you remember seeing. Auto-bracketing is a big help.

Depth of field is also a problem. If you shoot using a high f-stop, say f16, all edges in the photograph will be hard. This is also true of the automatic exposure settings on most cameras, which tend to be optimized for snapshots of people. Although some painters want all the edges, in their paintings to be hard, most painters prefer to restrict hard edges to their center of interest and modify all other edges to various degrees of softness. This accords with how we experience the world: where we focus our attention, the edges are crisp and well defined, while everything in our peripheral vision is to some degree softer. If you wish to reproduce this effect in your photos, you may need to switch from your camera's automatic exposure mode to its aperture priority mode, which enables you to use various lower f-stops in order to set the amount of soft background focus you prefer.

Parallax, the tendency for vertical lines at the edges of a photograph to curve inward, are a function of the curvature of the camera lens. Again, using image editing software, you can correct for parallax. 

Other Problems
Even with the finest images, painting from photographs still presents considerable difficulties for inexperienced painters. 

First, it is hard to re-create in the studio the intensity of feeling you experience in the field. The act of painting becomes more academic, an exercise in problem solving more than a creative response to your surroundings. This is why re-creating the spontaneity and freshness of a plein-air painting is so difficult in the studio. Even experienced professional painters have to work at it. Memory, of course, is an invaluable aid. The more you paint on location, the larger your database of remembered images. This is how experienced painters can create naturalistic lighting even when photos are not perfect, or can even change the lighting entirely from what is in the photo or was the case on the ground. There is no substitute for experience.

Second, it is too easy to become seduced by the photograph, to rely on it rather than on your personal sense of composition, color, mood, and other factors. The photo becomes a crutch that can weaken your work. You need to work hard not to copy its values and colors, not to take its composition as a given, not to reproduce every little detail it contains. 


Finally, painting exclusively from photos can represent a lack of commitment to the task of painting that may manifest itself in your work as preciousness, sentimentality, or banality. Painting from life, whether it be landscapes, still lifes, or figures, infuses your work with serious intent and authenticity. 

Some Suggestions

• Paint from life whenever you can. 
• If you must paint from photographs, make sure they are good photographs.
• Buy a good digital camera. A snapshot camera is adequate for most purposes, but not for the serious artist.
• Use your camera's viewfinder to compose your subject. Take photos from different angles and at various settings. Play with cropping photos to find new or more effective compositions.
• Learn to use image editing software to improve your photos and to experiment with various painting possibilities. More about this in a subsequent post.
• For studio paintings, the best source material is a combination of on-the-spot sketches or studies and multiple photos for use as reference.

 

Abstracting Reality

I am not drawn to making purely abstract art, at least not at this point in my artistic development, because I am too infatuated by the physical world. When I paint, say, sunlight glittering on a mountain stream, I am participating in the beauty of that effect much more intensely than I would by taking a snapshot or simply admiring it for a few moments then passing on. In some way, I am trying to make that moment and that place mine. The pleasure I derive from such direct participation is so intense that by itself it could account for my need to paint. When I add the tactile pleasure of manipulating the paint, the experience is one to which I must return again and again.

Steve Whitney. Teton Creek. This studio painting
was inspired by a 6x8 inch plein air study.

 Abstract painters share a conceit that what they produce somehow more truly expresses themselves (or at least who they think they are or would like to be) than do representational paintings produced by the rest of us. That's a self-congratulatory fiction. A nonfigurative painting is definitely more self-absorbed, even solipsistic, than a representational painting, but that does not mean that it is truer to the reality of the painter, more valuable as a spiritual experience to either the painter or the viewer, or that it represents a purer or more refined approach to making images. It is simply a different type of subject matter, one that can be as trivial or quirky as a representational painting can be predictable or conventional.

All painting is abstraction. Representational painters necessarily abstract what they see, and their compositions, the abstract scaffolding on which they hang their images, can be every bit as complex and daring as those of paintings that are conventionally regarded as "abstracts."

Ilya Repin. The Unexpected Visitor. This complex interior scene
works because it hangs on sophisticated asbstract scaffolding.

 I like to imagine painting styles as a continuum, ranging, say, from realistic illustration at one end to purely abstract design at the other. Most of us find ourselves and our work camped somewhere along this continuum, depending on our temperament, taste, and training. What matters is not where you sit, but whether you like where you sit.

It is natural and proper in the beginning to focus on the development of technical skills; that is, on becoming familiar with the materials and tools of your craft and learning how to use them. At some point, however, you start thinking more about personal expression and its handmaiden, "style."

You start worrying about having your own "style" at about the time you actually start acquiring one. And that happens when your skills have developed to the point where you're not afraid to experiment on your own. Painters who already have a distinctive personal style will all tell you not to worry about it; just keep painting, it will come.

That style may turn out to be rather different from that of one or more of your current teachers. When that happens, it's time to move on to new teachers, who can help you along the next step of the way.

Some morning you may wake up to discover that while you weren't looking you became an impressionist or classicist or tonalist or colorist or expressionist or minimalist or abstract expressionist or surrealist or fauvist or whatever--and that it's all good!

Plain Talk About Plein Air

Painting en plein air--literally "in the outdoors"--is enjoying enormous popularity among both painters and patrons. Numerous organizations dedicate themselves exclusively to plein air painting and work to attract the attention of collectors and galleries. An increasing number of communities host plein air events to promote tourism and their own cultural cachet.


The rapid growth of plein air painting over the past 20 years is cause for celebration because it is in the vanguard of a wider reaction to the obscurity, banality, and pretentiousness of much "modern" and "post-modern" art. Contemporary plein air painters have turned away from the intellectual abstractions of modernism and post-modernism to respond simply and directly to the world around them. Their paintings require no explanation.

Dan Riley. View of Snoqualmie River

 Collectors value plein air paintings for their energy and spontaneity. They also appreciate the virtuosity whereby a talented artist can achieve such dramatic results so quickly and with such an economy of means, the very qualities we so much admire in the French Impressionists and their kin. Most collectors are well aware of the role of plein air painting in the development of French Impressionism and through their purchases are able, perhaps, in some small measure to participate in that tradition.

Steve Whitney. The Sentry

 Artists too are well aware that in moving their studio outdoors they are following in the footsteps of masters such as Constable, Monet, Sorolla, Sargent, Zorn, and Homer. Like their precursors, today's plein air painters also relish the challenge and immediacy of confronting their subjects directly rather than second-hand through photographs. In this they are like their counterparts painting from the model or from a still-life setup.

John Tubbs. Gold Creek Pond

 The benefits of making art outdoors include

• Fun! Hanging out with friends who share your passion in a beautiful (or at least interesting) environment.
• Challenge! Focusing on essentials to simplify the seeming chaos of nature.
• Expression! Painting your immediate response to the scene before you.
• Authenticity! Learning about light and color first hand rather than through the lens of a camera.
• Practice. Honing your design, drawing, and painting skills.

Despite the benefits of making art outdoors, many artists and especially beginners are reluctant to get started. Some are daunted by real or apparent complications such as gathering proper equipment; contending with weather, bugs, and traffic; route finding; packing lunches, and so on. Other painters fear they will embarrass themselves in front of fellow artists and curious strangers. Not a few are simply intimidated by the prospect of wresting a painting from subject matter that is rarely arranged conveniently.

Steve Whitney. Morning Shade

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that at one time I used all these excuses myself. Then I took a couple of plein air workshops and found a nearby friend to go with me on local painting excursions. That was more than a decade ago, and since then I've been out dozens of times and completed hundreds of plein air paintings.

To increase enjoyment, reduce frustration, and move beyond concerns about embarrassment, I learned early on to manage my expectations. Here are some tips that helped me and may prove useful to you.

If you feel intimidated by the abundance of possibilities around you, don't feel obliged to create a panoramic landscape. Instead paint studies of rocks, trees, people, whatever. These studies train both eye and hand and can be used later as references for studio paintings.

Steve Whitney. Ornamental Plum

Even a failed plein air drawing or painting, especially when combined with photographs, can serve as inspiration or reference for later studio work.

If you are painting with more experienced artists, take time to watch them work (free demos!) and feel free to ask questions. Most artists are happy to help and flattered that you should ask.

Enjoy the camaraderie, which can make up even for the most frustrating outings.

Lower your expectations, especially at first. Painting outdoors is a skill unto itself, and even experienced artists often crank out paintings that, at least by their standards, are not up to the mark.

For specific recommendation on plein air painting, please see the "Plein Air Primer" on the website of the Evergreen Association of Fine Arts: http://eafa.org/shows-and-events/eafa-plein-air-program/plein-air-primer.

Internet Resources

When I first began to paint seriously back in the early nineties, the only sources of information aside from my teachers were books and magazines. So I bought tons of books and subscribed to all the magazines. Today, the Internet provides painters at all levels with an overflowing treasure trove of information about all aspects of painting, and much of it is free!

The following websites are highly recommended:

Art and Influence http://www.artandinfluence.com/
Painter Armand Cabrera's blog features demos, tips on methods and materials, free videos, historical items, and a great list of links to other websites.

Gurney Journey http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
Author, illustrator, and plein-air painter James Gurney provides a potpourri of anecdotes, tips, videos, demos, conversations, and essays on all topics related to drawing and painting.

Marc Dalessio http://www.marcdalessio.com/
Painter Marc Dalessio includes valuable tips on materials, methods, and both studio and outdoor practice. His free one-minute painting videos are excellent. His landscape and portrait paintings are superb.

Painting Perceptions http://paintingperceptions.com/
This blog focuses on paintings done from life. It features an active forum, as well as videos and interviews with more than a hundred painters. A real treasure chest of information

The Painter's Keys http://painterskeys.com/
Twice a week, Canadian painter Robert Genn sends a couple of emails to his hundreds of subscribers, usually of a philosophical rather than technical nature. His subscribers respond eagerly, and their responses, called "click backs" are posted on his website, often along with their paintings. Whatever your artistic interests may be, you are bound to find plenty of stuff to keep you clicking back for more.

Painting Lessons: Beginner to Advanced http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/index.php
New Zealand painter Richard Robinson offers an extensive set of free videos. They are enticements to buy his more extensive DVDs and videos, but are excellent resources in their own right.

Wet Canvas http://www.wetcanvas.com/
A painter's online bulletin board with some 400,000 members. Membership is free, with the option of supporting the site by upgrading to a paid membership. Both types of members enjoy access to all the sites features. The most popular is probably its many lively forum discussions, where you will find answers to just about any art question you might have. The site also offers product reviews, videos, online courses, more than 10 million reference photos, links to other art sites, and many other features. If you frequent only one site, this is probably your best bet.

More on Workshops

Armand Cabrera is a nationally known painter who clearly is also a dedicated teacher. Both his website and his blog are chock-full of great information and guidance for painters at all levels. Yesterday, after publishing my piece on workshops (see the following post), I happened to visit Armand's blog and discovered that he had also recently posted an article on workshops, which beautifully complements my own. So with Armand's permission, his article appears below in its entirety.


Workshop Tips 

by Armand Cabrera

 I have been teaching workshops for 15 years now and have been taking workshops for over 20.  My teaching came from a need to share information with other artists that seemed to struggle with the mechanics of painting and the philosophy of professionalism. At my last workshop I heard horrible stories from my students about the lack of professionalism from some artists who are now teaching. I thought I would offer some tips for students on what to look out for when signing up for a workshop.

When I started teaching I made a vow to myself to never repeat the things I saw in some of the workshops I've taken from other artists.  As a student I vet my teachers and call them before I sign up and make sure they are providing a professional service for my money. I suggest you do the same and if you don’t get the answers you like spend your money elsewhere

.

There are a lot of people teaching now, some because of a bad economy and those people are probably not teaching for the right reasons.  If you are taking a workshop there are some things to look out for to make sure you have a good experience and don’t get taken advantage of.

 A workshop should have a large well lit venue provided by the teacher or organization that will fit the students and their equipment comfortably. This goes for plein air workshops too. Bad weather is no excuse to not get a painting day in at your workshop. If the teacher or venue hasn't rented such a place for the week, even if they don’t use it, that should be a red flag to a student.

Number of students most people can comfortably teach 10 to 15 students more than that becomes a challenge and takes away from individual attention. If you only see an instructor once during your painting that is another red flag that the instructor is lazy or has too many people in the workshop.

In my workshops I come around to every student at least three times for each painting session. We usually work on two paintings a day. They see me at the start the middle and the finish of each painting so they can get complete guidance on their work.

I always ask if my instructors demo. If they don’t, I don’t take their classes. I don’t care how good they are as a painter; they are a lousy teacher if they can’t actually show you how they do something by doing it in front of students in a workshop setting. It’s another red flag and deal killer for me as a student.

Abusive teaching styles aren't acceptable either. If an instructor is too stupid to explain something without throwing a temper tantrum or being abusive then they should not teach. I have witnessed firsthand some abusive teaching tactics and didn't put up with them; you shouldn't either.

A workshop should be an enlightening experience that invigorates your painting. As a paying customer you have a right to demand a certain level of professionalism from a workshop and teacher. If we hold high standards we will insure we get everything we want.

Reprinted from Armand Cabrera's blog, Art and Influence, http://www.artandinfluence.com.

Here is the link to Armand's website: http://www.armandcabrera.com/index.html