I’ve noted previously that, while there is no such thing as cheating in art, photographs present certain problems when used as reference materials for realist drawing or painting. These problems are exacerbated when you try to do something with an amateur snapshot, which is typically to be used as the basis of a portrait. To be useful as a portrait reference, a photo really needs to be composed largely in terms of the direction and intensity of light. Does the light illuminate the face in such a way that the structure of the nose, the brow, the mouth, and so on are clearly delineated? Are the lights blown out? Are the darks impenetrable? Are there lively catchlights in the eyes? Will the smile on the face translate into something that looks like a horrible grimace? (Almost all portrait paintings, in my opinion, are better if no teeth are showing.)
No one gives the least thought to any of that stuff when taking, or judging, a snapshot. Nor should they. But if they bring it to you and ask you to translate it into a painting, you need to be willing to explain why that’s just not a good idea. Even working from life, it takes great skill to paint a good portrait. It’s even harder when working from a set of well-lit and correctly exposed photographs. Making it work with a crappy snapshot is almost impossible. That’s especially the case when the photo was made with a flash on the camera pointed straight at the subject, which will eliminate all trace of dimensionality and make everything look flat.
So I want you now to make these two promises to yourself:
I solemnly swear that, if presented with a good snapshot, taken without a flash, and asked to paint a portrait from it, I will not comply unless offered really impressive amounts of cash or threatened with serious emotional blackmail by a family member whom I know to be crazy enough to convince my mom to stop speaking to me for a year.
I solemnly swear that, if presented with a bad snapshot, or any snapshot taken with a flash, it would take a credible threat of death to me, a loved one, or a family pet in order to get me to try to do something with it.
Now you’re ready for when your Aunt Stephanie finds out that you are an artist and wants free portraits of the whole family. Leave it to Chinese sweatshop artists to attempt “genuine oil paintings made with artist-grade materials” using only crappy snapshots. You owe it to yourself and to the rest of us.
Methinks you’re too honest, David. I’ve seen portraits done from 4×6’s from the family scrapbook and the vast majority of people I’ve met think those naïve-realist renditions with no depth (but “shading”) are impressive…especially since many take the photograph as the benchmark of pure objective and optical reality.
No amount of articulation can make people see what they can’t realize. Well, doing the right thing was never supposed to easy anyway…
You could probably ignore my comments since I live in the boondocks. We have a “Thomas Kinkead Gallery” (mousepads now on sale) and little else.
Thanks for the comment.
U.S., at least, we all live near one of his galleries.
I will make the promise. You are quite right about the family members thing. I hate telling them no. They just don’t understand that their favorite snapshot makes a lousy drawing. Now I can say “David made me promise not to” and get out of the long explaination as to why I can’t use it.
Anna,
Excellent! Just say no to snapshots.
Great Advice David!
I am interested in learning to take proper reference photos for additional work when life is not available (for instance starting a landscape and then bringing it back into studio once the light is not optimal). Do you have any good sources for learning? (I’m sure I can dig up some really
good stuff over on Cennini). Have you heard anything about Scott Burdick’s Photographing Your Artwork DVD?
Incidentally, I got the Richard Schmid Paints The Landscape– May DVD for Christmas. It is interesting in that he takes the painting back into the studio where he has his Mac Book and Cinema Screen hooked up to display a reference (he said it was the second time in his life working from digital photography). In the past he projected a 35mm slide which gives off a very hot light so if the sceen had cool lights and warm shadows it reversed the color perception. He says working digitally maintains the color balance. I would be open to trading if you were interested in checking it out (I’m interested in some of the Liliedahl DVDs if you have any).
Jeff,
I’m not so great at either taking good reference photos or working from reference photos (although I do know that flash snapshots are what not to use). It seems overall that good photos often make bad references, and good references often look rather blah as photos. I think it’s useful to bracket shots (deliberately shooting multiple shots of one scene, with some shots overexposed and some underexposed), because that can provide a lot more shadow detail in overexposed shots and highlight detail in underexposed shots. But I am hardly the expert.
I’m afraid I don’t have any painting videos of any kind. I don’t have any objection to them, but I’ve tended to spend my money on art books instead.
It’s very interesting to hear that Schmidt is now using digital photo references; I’d thought he was a “work only from life” purist. At some point I will buy his “Alla Prima” book.