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Using Stock photos
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Message
Posted
Hi Shirley, the usual copyright applies to stock images. The photographers get paid per image download and what purpose it is downloaded for. You should do a search for creative commons images if you want copyright free images. Otherwise you could contact the photographer (their name and contact details are normally on stock sites), as they may be quite happy for you to use their image for what you are doing.
Posted
Thanks Alan - my sanity is restored - what I said was along the following lines:
It is okay for images to be used for your own personal improvement but not further or otherwise. Putting it simply (unless the images are expressly declared as being copyright free) you cannot use the images if you intend to use them for the purposes of sale or public display.
Having said that even even where images are stated as being copyright free I would still never use them for paintings that are to be put on sale or on display. I'm sure there will be a consensus here on POL which advises that you should always seek to work from your own source material.
However there is a caveat in all of this - you do ask if it's okay to use internet images for inspiration. Well, yes, maybe if you are purely using them as inspiration to paint in say a certain style or to a particular palette and not copying the image. There are vast areas of grey between copying and simply being inspired which is where the courts come into play. It's areas of grey which keep the lawyers in bread and milk - me included before I retired.
Posted
Michael always has it right re copyright. But like Alan B oooops two Alan Bs ,
the best method is just get out there with a sketch book. Or use your own photographs.
If you do use other peoples photographs it’s not your concept , it’s not your view . It’s someone else’s creativity that you are using. So in my book you have lost before you start.
Reference pics are another matter just to check a colour or the way the stripes of a tiger are formed. Though a day at the zoo is great.
What leaves me completely cold are copies of celebs , cartoons and other such stuff. Being very ,very controversial ,
“ Anyone can copy “ .
Edited
by Sylvia Evans
Posted
Not controversial , the work has already been done! What I do though, is use a photo ( not mine ) for pencil practice, "technique" practice. Sometimes I haven't got a suitable photo of my own, with enough " light and dark". But this is for a learning process, not to produce it as my own " take" on something. I cringe when I see these reproductions of someone else's work which are only, let's be honest, carbon copies, and not very good ones, usually.
Posted
Pity this thread has got lost under a redundant heading - it raises so many interesting points.
A bit late to add to it now, really. But I will, just while I'm waiting for my potatoes to roast...... Stock photos are fine if they're all you have to work from; some of us can't get out of the house too easily at the best of times, and since this thread was started we've had covid-19 to contend with and make the problem worse. The only thing you must do is interpret them, and one of the best ways of doing that is to reduce them to greyscale - do not rely on the colour in a colour photograph, because however good it is, it will still lead you horribly astray. Photography has come a very long way in my lifetime, but it still can't convey the subtleties - and worse, it can actively mislead us. The other way, is to take your photograph, make a pencil sketch of it, PUT YOUR PHOTO AWAY, and work from your sketch.
Nothing, be it said, beats going outside and taking a damn' good look; perhaps capturing the scene in watercolour or coloured pencil, or pastel, before retreating inside to get the oils or acrylics (or whatever) out. But we can't all do that, and shouldn't be confined indoors with nothing to do but doodle if we can't. Take your example from Le Douanier Rousseau - he never saw any of the things he painted, other than in zoos: parce-qu'il était douanier (knew that O level would come in handy one day) pas d'explorateur.
Might even have got the A level, had I but persevered........
Copyright is something else again, but 'fair use' comes into this - and I've never managed to copy anyone else's work, nor would I want to: saw a painting (not on here) the other day, entitled 'After Ted Wesson'. Yes, I thought, but so very far after that no one would have known had you not told them.
Posted
You can purchase copyright photographic images online. My mother-in-law asked me to do a painting of the church at her birthplace in Croatia for her 80th birthday. It's a tiny hill village with a current population of only 70 - and I couldn't find any suitable royalty free images online. After an extensive search I found a copyright photo by a Croatian photographer on a website called iStock. It cost about £8 to order just 1 downloaded copy - but it was needs must for a very special lady.
Posted
Painting from photographs a good subject.
I paint excursively from my own or others photographs, for me this is the beast way to paint. I rarely keep to the photograph merging two or three images into one, I first of all before painting I draw. For instance my last drawing is of a French cafe scene, not one of the people sitting are like the photographs used. I like to manipulate my subjects, make then in the position I want - its fun. Then if I like it I will paint, if not its good drawing practice! 
As can been seen in the drawing, the two men on the left in the photograph were at separate tables with the waiter is just a man passing past the cafe. The two on the right are from another photograph but they now are dressed completely diferant from the original.
David
As can been seen in the drawing, the two men on the left in the photograph were at separate tables with the waiter is just a man passing past the cafe. The two on the right are from another photograph but they now are dressed completely diferant from the original.
DavidEdited
by David Owen-Dudley