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How Can I Be Able To Paint But Be Useless In Observation.
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Message
Posted
I have always thought that to be able to paint you should be able to observe accurately. Well I am the opposite! I can look at nature and subjects and work out how to reproduce the colours, if not accurately then, nearly. But taking a photo is a very different matter - I line everything up and get the perspective right (or so I think) and then my husband will say something like "can you see the scene with that huge lamppost in front of you dear"? Absolutely true - and if not a lamppost, a tree etc. Now stop laughing and own up - does anyone else do the same or am I on my own here? If so, help!
Posted
There is usually quite a difference between a photo taken by a photographer and one taken by an artist. Whenever I look at the photographs taken by photographers which are offered copyright free for artists to use they are often of exceptional quality as a photo but it's rare that I can ever find one that appeals to me as an artist. As artists we are quite happy to move things round, leave things out and even add bits in. In our photos we are looking for inspiration whereas a photographer is looking for perfection (as far as it can ever be achieved).
When I take photos of village scenes for example, I am not bothered about cars, trees, shrubs, street furniture etc - they can easily be moved round or omitted: I am more concerned with what I can make of the scene. Whilst my photos will never win a photographic competition they are an invaluable source of inspiration for me as an artist.
David is spot on - keep on taking photos of subjects that excite you and remember, if you use a photo to work from it is only an aid or a starting point.
Posted
Adele (5/9/2016)It's perfectly understandable. A good artist will look at a scene and in-brain remove the things she doesn't want to have in the painting. What you're doing with photography is the SAME THING - you look at the scene in the viewfinder or on the back screen... and mentally remove or ignore the things you wouldn't include if you painted it. You don't even notice them becasue, to you, they are already gone from your in-brain picture. Having said that - it's not the "right" thing to do with photography; I find artists tend to be poor photographers, and visa versa. A camera records all it sees, it can't make any decisions itself (other than focus and exposure) - the human behind it has to frame and position it to hide or exclude the unwanted. The artist looks at a village and, in-brain, removes the cars and the stop sign, adds some sheep in the field, changes the colour of the shop wall, etc... The trouble is this - if you train your brain for art then it's poor for photography... if you train it for photography then it's poor for art. The answer is - are you taking the photos for yourself, to paint/draw/ink from? If so then it doesn't matter... when you look at the photo you'll auto-remove the extraneous items. If it's for touristy-type "remember the holiday" shots - then it doesn't really matter all that much, hey? (This is also, partly, why some artists have trouble photographing their artwork - lighting and colourings go wrong)
I have always thought that to be able to paint you should be able to observe accurately. Well I am the opposite! I can look at nature and subjects and work out how to reproduce the colours, if not accurately then, nearly. But taking a photo is a very different matter - I line everything up and get the perspective right (or so I think) and then my husband will say something like "can you see the scene with that huge lamppost in front of you dear"? Absolutely true - and if not a lamppost, a tree etc. Now stop laughing and own up - does anyone else do the same or am I on my own here? If so, help!
Edited
by DippyDipper
Posted
Just for once, Alan, I am not entirely in agreement with you - sorry. Yes some photographers do have a knack of taking photos and probably take loads and loads before deciding which is the best. Those photos which do reach great acclaim and/or (these days) go viral are usually just one out of many hundreds taken - in other words they are more by accident than design.
This in part supports your argument but in choosing just one photo out of many does require an element of the 'artistic eye'. The same (and more so) could be said for the application of Photoshop in deciding how to amend/touch up/alter a photo to improve it. Going on from there many photographers play around with and distort a photo often beyond recognition to arrive an image which they find appealing and which surely brings a greater artistic ability into play. This is where the cross-over between art and photography comes in and which, along with other forms of digital art, causes so much argument in many local clubs etc. Such work is also evident from time to time in the postings here on POL.
Getting back to 'normal' photography I would suggest that artistic skills are employed in the process albeit to a very limited level and way behind the skills needed with a camera and patience waiting for that perfect shot.
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
I have a friend who's a professional photographer - and he's a professional because he can take shots which other people would take if they could, but can't. So there's a skill in it - what kind of skill is something we could argue about, but certainly there's a matter of "eye" - knowing what's going to work (although I do know of some, especially newspaper photographers, who just take hundreds of shots in the hope that one of them will come up trumps, which by the law of averages one or two should: but looking at newspaper photos, you'll know that's not always true). A good photographer will select, calculate light, composition, angle, shadow.... this isn't the same thing as painting a picture, of course; but there is a question of judgement - my friend will take a selection of shots and most of them at least work; because he thinks. Indeed, you can find his work at http://www.barryfitzgerald.net
As I've told him, though, few of his photographs are of much use to me - as you possibly know, I am compelled to work largely from photographs, preferably my own, because I can't get out into the landscape and stand and paint. My own photos aren't ideal, but they're adequate - because I'm not very good as a photographer: in Barry's photographs, all the work has been done for me already; the composition, the lighting. All I could do with them is just copy, and there's no fun in that for me. Being a good photographer would be an active disadvantage - I'd have to discard the camera and go out with just the sketchbook, making laborious colour notes (this may be what I SHOULD do, but it's more work.... don't like work. Nasty habit....).
I do have a classically rotten photo, if I can find it - I think when you see it, Adele, you'll know you're not alone.
Posted
I understand that a professional photographer will go to great lengths to compose his picture, lighting, all the settings to think about etc etc, big deal!, most people can be trained on the technical details of an SLR in a few hours or perhaps more in some cases. You can just use the auto settings and forget all about F numbers I suppose.I accept that there is a modicum of skill required to pull it all together, but nothing more than that.
I consider myself to be a good photographer (well he would say that I hear you say), and a reasonably competent artist, (note that I didn't say good artist, and come under criticism once again). I compose and approach a photo in the same way as I go about setting out a painting, if you're good at doing the photo thing you should be able to apply it to painting, anyway, that's what I do without any issues, but I'm not everyone...
Perhaps I've just got a gripe about photographer's and photography in general, having worked side by side with them in my career, and of course not to mention my worst nightmare, a photorealistic painting, but that again is another subject.