Three Important Tips for Using a Camera for Your Paintings or Drawings
In the hands of a competent artist, the camera can be an important advantage. A real artist will use the camera to try dozens of compositions until all the possible arrangements for making a good painting or drawing are worked out. However, the important words here are competent artists. If a person can’t draw or paint or have a workable understanding of composition, they can never use the camera effectively in their work.
The camera can also ruin an artist’s work if certain concerns are not addressed properly. For example, a photograph often becomes a disappointment when it comes to recording color. In your plein-air studies, you are able to see and record nuances of color that completely alludes the camera.
Imagine this: you are near a stream of water and the rocks on the stream’s bed shows beneath the water? They seem so colorful. You see a multitude of colors; grays; ochres; blues; siennas; umbers; and whites. The excitement overwhelms you. You must create a painting of what you are seeing. You can see in your mind’s eye the finished work. So, you take out your camera and start taking snap shots. However, when you view the photos, you’re disappointed. The colorful rocks beneath the water are barely visible. The color only shows dark where the rocks were. Why?
The reason for this is clipping. Clipping is the loss of information because of the inability of the photo-sensor to respond to relative extremes of bright and dim light. Also, adjacent warm and cool colors seldom register correctly in a photograph. This is because colors shift and weaken in chroma and tend to become monochromatic. Reflected colors (so important to a painting) are seldom picked up.
TIP ONE: So that you will not be influenced by color in the photograph, desaturate it by turning it black and white. This is easy to do with certain digital cameras. If this is not available to you, it can be done with the computer when you download your pictures. Also, the abstraction and value shows up so much better in black and white and makes composing the planned painting easier.
If you are going to use photographs for reference material, it is important to make them the best that you possibly can. If you are haphazardly shooting all over the place, you’ll most likely be disappointed. You are trying to find a picture worthy of your talents. You are imagining, or seeing, abstraction in the composition. With a digital camera you can easily check your shots to make sure you are getting what you want.
TIP TWO: When you look through the viewfinder, assume you are seeing a scene as if it were a painting. Move around and shoot different angles. Take close up shots for details.
If you’re going to use people as a subject in your finished painting, the camera becomes an enormous advantage, not to mention time saver. It is an excellent way to record poses of models who aren’t able to hold a pose long enough to sketch a drawing or make a painting. There are times you may wish to take a shot with your camera in a busy place, such as a restaurant, school, mall, or airport. Be sure to get permission of people you paint, or do not make them recognizable.
Another benefit to the camera when taking snap shots of people (or anything else, for that matter) is that it is possible to take photographs from unusual angles–down-shots from above or shots from near the floor looking up. It would be very difficult for artists to sketch from these uncomfortable positions.
TIP THREE: Take several shots from every possible angle when photographing people. This allows you to try dozens of compositions later in your studio. You may find the picture you originally had in mind is not your finished product. A better and more exciting one replaces it.
In conclusion: The eye of the camera does not see the same as you do. In many cases it often focuses in a single plane. As an artist the camera can be invaluable, but so is your artistic talent. Do not allow yourself to become tempted by over simplifying the techniques needed to make your very best painting or drawing that you can.
All you have to remember is that the picture you have in your mind’s eye is nonexistent to the real world. It is inside your head. Only you can produce it! When you take a photograph, treat it for what it is. It is something for you to refer to and work from, and is probably of less important than your sketches, studies, compositional arrangements, color samples, and other materials needed to complete your work. Keep using your camera to help you in your art work, but use it wisely.
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