Slides and Prejudice

gr82bart · Sep 27, 2008

http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2020

Interesting article.

Regards, Art.

winger · Sep 27, 2008

Until I joined the local art club, I didn't realize so many painters used photos as a starting point. I used to think it was just for practice (I know someone who does do it that way, but draws from life for non-practice ones). And I have to say, if I'd done that, I'd probably be a decent painter. Especially if I projected the image and drew on it.

Paul Goutiere · Sep 27, 2008

I met an artist who printed an image in reverse, using a laser printer (B&W or colour) on paper.

-Then the image was transferred to canvas by either heat or acetone.
-When the paper was removed the image had transferred to the canvas, for the most part.
-He then applied his paint.

I'm afraid I don't know how I feel about this.

Aurum · Sep 27, 2008

....In Photoshop, everything becomes completely divorced from the physical side of paintingand thats the whole point of it. Drawing on a computer screen is depressing. Id rather be looking at porn.

That HAS to be the quote of the article

Whiteymorange · Sep 30, 2008

winger said:
Until I joined the local art club, I didn't realize so many painters used photos as a starting point. I used to think it was just for practice (I know someone who does do it that way, but draws from life for non-practice ones). And I have to say, if I'd done that, I'd probably be a decent painter. Especially if I projected the image and drew on it.

There's still time, Bethe! Start drawing (tracing) now and get the paints out.

I work from photos in painting landscapes. I start with the image in front of me and then, after the base coat of paint, or sometimes before that, I put the photo away. I don't want a bad copy of a photo, I want a painting that can stand by itself. The result can, but often doesn't look like the photo. The alternative, painting "plein air," is too distracting for me. I often find I'm wandering around instead of painting. Easily led astray, I'm afraid... Somehow I get down to business more easily with a camera when looking for landscapes.

eddym · Sep 30, 2008

My wife is a pastel artist, and usually works from her own photographs. She frequently asks me to critique her works, and one thing I point out at times is that she should eliminate the "photographic" perspective. To give a recent example, in a pastel that she just did of a lighthouse, there were converging verticals from tilting the camera up slightly to get the top of the lighthouse in. I suggested that she straighten them; it's a photographic perspective that should not be reproduced in a painting. We go to great lengths with our view cameras to correct it!

Aurum · Sep 30, 2008

She wouldn't be the first artist to use a camera, and she would be in good company

Vermeer for instance

He's been credited for using some wierd device called a camera obscura.
Also known as the ultimate LF camera.

For when 10x8 just isn't good enough!

winger · Sep 30, 2008

Whitey, I wish I'd had someone like you for art class in school. We had art class from kindergarten through 8th grade, then could take electives after that (what a surprise, that's when I took photography). But the teacher from K-6 never had us draw. We did more craft projects than anything else. I remember making candles and print blocks. And she wasn't very complimentary with what anyone did. She also spoke about herself in the 3rd person - "Mrs. Smith wants you to color inside the lines. Mrs. Smith doesn't like that pattern." I did learn about perspective in 7th grade (different and much better teacher). But I think I had enough other interests by then that I really didn't think about art much.
In the old days at the lab, we had to sketch the evidence (shirt, jeans, whatever) to show where we made cuttings or did tests. Those usually came out pretty good (though hardly art). So, maybe it is about time I tried drawing other things (prettier things).

Sorry, Art! Veering off topic a bit.

papagene · Sep 30, 2008

Projecting an image and tracing it onto canvas/paper ain't nuthin new. Go back to the Renaissance time and you'll see that early versions of the camera obscura (then room sized) was used for this purpose. How do you think artists got a real handle on perspective??
Nuthin new under the sun.

gene

Joe VanCleave · Oct 1, 2008

I'm not entirely opposed to painting derived from photographs, as long as I can't tell by looking at the painting. The eye/optic nerve/visual cortex sees (i.e. interprets) visual clues differently than does the camera lens. One common artifact of photo-derived paintings that is easily seen is shallow depth of focus, which the biological system doesn't do. Another, as mentioned previously, is curvature of field.

Sadly, many painters don't go to the trouble of interpreting the photographed scene the way human vision works, rather they look more like painting as an alternative printing method for photographic images.

Not to sound like an art snob, but plein-air painting just looks more painterly, to my eyes. If I wanted a photo, I'd have taken a camera. And I can appreciate the investment in time and effort that goes with painting 'on location'.

~Joe

HerrBremerhaven · Oct 2, 2008

I mostly have painted from photographs, often images that I took. However, I never projected those photographs onto my canvas. When I needed something larger for reference, then I would draw it larger, and use the drawing to work on the painting. After I graduated (BFA 1998) I went into doing illustration, though that led me to design, and then commercial photography. Even when I was doing illustration, I took photos to give me reference materials. Eventually the photography became my main career path, and I now rarely do paintings or illustration.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

pelerin · Oct 2, 2008

Joe VanCleave said:
I'm not entirely opposed to painting derived from photographs, as long as I can't tell by looking at the painting. The eye/optic nerve/visual cortex sees (i.e. interprets) visual clues differently than does the camera lens. One common artifact of photo-derived paintings that is easily seen is shallow depth of focus, which the biological system doesn't do. Another, as mentioned previously, is curvature of field.

Sadly, many painters don't go to the trouble of interpreting the photographed scene the way human vision works, rather they look more like painting as an alternative printing method for photographic images.

Not to sound like an art snob, but plein-air painting just looks more painterly, to my eyes. If I wanted a photo, I'd have taken a camera. And I can appreciate the investment in time and effort that goes with painting 'on location'.

~Joe

Hi,
What about photo-realism a la Robert Bechtle ? Bechtle's paintings clearly reference photographs. They evidence no effort to, "go to the trouble of interpreting the photographed scene the way human vision works." However I think one would find little evidence in the work to support the idea that the photographic referents were simply time saving aids or props for poor drafting skills. How would the artist have improved them by not referencing photos or disguising the fact that he did so?
Celac

Videbaek · Oct 6, 2008

Painting and photography, this is good! Papagene, painters didn't use the camera obscura to "figure out perspective". They didn't need lenses, they used their eyes and their brains to lay down the laws of perspective (single, double, multiple vanishing points) supported by mathematical calculation and rigorous observation. When photography was invented and the first perspectival photographic studies were made, they merely confirmed the perspectival laws of foreshortening and vanishing point that painters like Dürer had established centuries before -- a non-event.

The camera obscura might or might not have been used by Vermeer. In my opinion, not. He didn't need it. Any competent painter of his day could paint with photographic correctness. Any competent painter today can paint with photographic correctness. This isn't the point of painting, never has been.

Thomas Bertilsson · Nov 8, 2008

Just re-reading this old thread... I disagree about depth of field. Examine once how your own eyes work. It's only an extremely small area of your entire visual coverage that's actually sharp. I proclaim that by focusing with an extremely narrow depth of field, and using tilt and swing if you're so inclined, to accentuate that effect.

I do agree about converging lines, but since much of what I like viewing is abstract, I really don't care too much about that either, other than it might serve as a give-away. An exact copy of reality may be pretty, but to me it's seldom interesting.

- Thomas

Joe VanCleave said:
I'm not entirely opposed to painting derived from photographs, as long as I can't tell by looking at the painting. The eye/optic nerve/visual cortex sees (i.e. interprets) visual clues differently than does the camera lens. One common artifact of photo-derived paintings that is easily seen is shallow depth of focus, which the biological system doesn't do. Another, as mentioned previously, is curvature of field.

Sadly, many painters don't go to the trouble of interpreting the photographed scene the way human vision works, rather they look more like painting as an alternative printing method for photographic images.

Not to sound like an art snob, but plein-air painting just looks more painterly, to my eyes. If I wanted a photo, I'd have taken a camera. And I can appreciate the investment in time and effort that goes with painting 'on location'.

~Joe

pelerin · Nov 12, 2008

Thomas Bertilsson said:
Just re-reading this old thread... I disagree about depth of field. Examine once how your own eyes work. It's only an extremely small area of your entire visual coverage that's actually sharp. I proclaim that by focusing with an extremely narrow depth of field

<snip>

- Thomas

Hi,
I believe PH Emerson wrote a treatise espousing (among others) a similar idea.
Celac

jd callow · Nov 12, 2008

I had an instructor tell me that painting from a photograph employed a different part of the brain than the part used to paint from life. I had another ask why would you shoot it then paint it when you already had the photograph. In my own experience I found painting from a photograph made me inclined to change the way I applied the paint. It seemed to alter or limit my brush strokes. I was more inclined to 'stay within the lines.' I don't believe that producing art from a photograph makes you use a different part of your brain or that it is some how illegitimate. I think it is the antithesis of gesture drawing and a way toward a technical apogee -- some finding their art at one end and others at the opposite pole.

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