Photography versus painting

This article was first published in my newsletter "Notes From My French Easel" – March 2011. 

Each time a new disruptive technology emerges and competes with an old one, people either fear it or embrasse it. John Ruskin, in his Lectures on art, looked upon photography with some contempt:

“I have not the slightest fear that photography, or any other adverse or competitive operation, will in the least ultimately diminish,--I believe they will, on the contrary, stimulate and exalt--the grand old powers of the wood and the steel.”

 Photograph by ardelfin -Source: Morguefile

A few years later, Degas embraced photography as a tool to capture mouvement and better understand it. He took photographs of bellerinas dancing in their studio and horses galloping at the races and used them as reference material. Photography is also a great tool for artists to judge their own work. Picasso once told Brassaï: "It’s strange indeed, but it is through your photographs that I can judge my sculptures… Through them I can see my sculptures with a new eye..."

Ken Robinson, in his book “Out of our minds”, explained very well how it takes time for a new media to generate a new art form:

“It’s an interesting feature of cultural change that for a time new technologies tend to be used to do the old thing. The early photographers tended to mimic the formal portraiture of oil painting. In due course, photographers realised that a camera made possible other forms of visual record.”

Today there is no question that photography has developed into an art form in its own right. In doing so, photography has forced painters to question the boundaries of their own art. As Picasso put it:

“Why should the artist persist to represent what the camera’s lens can capture so well? It would be foolish, isn’t it? Photography came at the right time to free painting of any literature, the anecdotal and even the subject ... In any case, some aspect of the subject now belongs to the field of photography ... Why painters should not now enjoy their regained freedom to do something else?”

The advent of digital photography in the last decades has brought together again painting and photography. The photographer can manipulate images in ways very similar to what painters do.

Related articles and resources

• Lectures on art by John Ruskin
• Degas' Dancer Photos by James Gurney 
• Article on Degas' use of photographs posted on Princeton’s website  

 
  

 John Ruskin art photgraphy painting Degas Picasso art quote Ken Robinson out of our minds

Drawing shadow areas from reference photographs

As I explained in an earlier article (see Working from photographs), details in photograph get lost in shadow areas. I have this issue when I print my reference photographs with my home printer on a sheet of A4 photo paper.

One way I found that helps with seeing details in the shadow areas consists in manipulating the photograph in Photoshop Element. I am using Adobe Photoshop Element 6.

If you want to invest in a good photo manipulation program, which remains easy to use and still has many features, go for the last version of this software which is currently Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (PC DVD). There is also a version for Mac: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Mac).

After I opened the photograph in Photoshop Element, I selected from the menu Filter/Sketch/Photocopy. The result was a negative black and white photograph.

I then had to invert the photograph to get the positive view: Filter/Adjustments/Invert. The result looked a little bit pale, so I decided to give it more contrast.

I applied Filter/Adjustment lighting/Brightness-Contrast. Using the cursor, I lowered the brightness to minus 88 (- 88) and boosted the contrast to 35 (+ 35).

Related articles

10 ways a painter can use digital photography 



Art studio tip Drawing Reference photograph Abobe Photoshop Elements

Picasso on what photography brought to painting

On several occasions, Picasso said how photography freed painting from its representational duty. He explained it clearly in his conversations with Brassaï, a well-known French photographer and friend of the artist:

« Quand on voit ce que vous exprimez par la photo, on se rend compte de tout ce qui ne peut plus être le souci de la peinture... Pourquoi l’artiste s’obstinerait-il à rendre ce que à l’aide de l’objectif on peut fixer si bien ? Ce serait une folie, n’est-ce pas ? La photographie est venue à point nommé pour libérer la peinture de toute littérature, de l’anecdote et même du sujet. En tout cas, un certain aspect du sujet appartient désormais au domaine de la photographie... Les peintres ne devraient-ils pas profiter de leur liberté reconquise pour faire autre chose ? »

We can translate this as:

« When we see what you express with photography, one realise all that painting does not need to be concerned with... Why the artist persists in rendering what can be so well captured by a camera’s lens? This would be madness, isn’t it? Photography just came along at the right time to free painting from any narrative function (“literature”), from the trivial and even from the painting subject. In any case, a certain aspect of the subject belongs from now on to the field of photography... Painters should take advantage of this recovered freedom to do something different, shouldn’t they? »

Quoted from “Propos sur l’Art” Picasso (Gallimard – Collection “Art et artistes” – ISBN-10: 207074698-4 – in French), extract from “Conversation avec Picasso” by Brassaï (Gallimard, 1964)

I believe the relationship between photography and painting has evolved into a more complex one, in particular since the advent of digital photography with its potential of images manipulation, get closer to painting.

I don’t think Picasso condemned figurative painting. He just encouraged the artist to open his mind and paint what he feels more than what he sees. The impressionists paved the way and it is no coincidence that photography grew as an art at that time.

Related article

10 ways a painter can use digital photography.

picasso photography painting brassai

10 ways a painter can use digital photography

Photograph I took in a pine forest in Prades-Le-Lez, South of France

1. 
   

   Paint from photographs: Build an images bank for your rainy days. For copyright reason, avoid using third parties’ photographs as model for your paintings (unless you have a written authorisation to do so from the author). Use your photographs as reference and don’t hesitate to combine several ones to compose your studio painting.

   Watercolour done using the photograph



2. A safety net for your plein-air painting sessions. When I do a painting on location, I always shoot some photographs of the scene before I start painting. Having these photographs will ease your mind. You don’t need to worry in case the weather changes and the pouring rain forces you to pack. The photographs will help you to continue working and finish the painting in the studio.



3. Capture moving subjects: People, animals, cars, and boats may move too fast to be accurately captured on the spot. Digital photography is an ideal tool to make what moves still.



4. Field notes to record potential subjects. An image is worth a 1000 words. Sometime, you see a scene with a good potential but the sky is grey or the sun casts the shadow the wrong way. You think: the trees would look good with the colours of autumn… but it is July and you will forget unless you take some notes. In this case, you can take photographs and keep them as thumbnails. If you can find a map of the area on the Internet, you can even make a digital collage of your pictures on the map to pinpoint the locations to paint. The illustrated map will jog you memory, even after several months.



5. Create a mood board: A mood board is used by designers to find the right mood for a particular work or project. Put all the elements you collect on a cork board or on the wall of your studio. You can cut out photographs in magazines, pin some postcards, use fabric samples or print your own photographs and add them to the mix. The emphasis here is not on the subject but more on the impression, textures, colours… in a nutshell: the mood.



6. Record the different stages of your creative process: You can create an illustrated painting demonstration. Even if you don’t plan to share the photographs of the intermediate stages of your work with your customers, you will learn a lot by going back and analyzing how you created you art.



7. Keep a record of all your works: Nothing should leave your studio without been properly photographed and documented. Make it a habit. As soon as a work is completed, take several photographs and check that you have at least one good photograph of each work.



8. Illustrate your marketing material: Brochures, invitations, business cards, web sites, blogs come alive with pictures of your works.



9. Experiment: Digital photography creates a risk-free environment. You can take as many photographs as the memory card of your camera will let you. Keep what you like and discard the rest. Shoot in the light, close-up or using weird angles. Go wild.



10. Study composition: You cannot change the landscape in front of you, but you can move and choose what you are shooting and where you are shooting from. If you take photographs of a still life, you have total control over the setting and the composition. You can learn what works and what does not by composing your photographs and then you can apply the same principles to your paintings.

Let me know how you use digital photography to serve your art.

digital photography plein air painting painting technique mood board art marketing