USING PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE

There is no argument that drawing from life is the most beneficial practice of all, however, for more than a century, artists have utilised cameras to facilitate their working process. Light changes and a moment can be lost, and complex figures and structures can lack accurate details with only a cursory glimpse from the artist.

The skill of accurately observing and recreating detail is one not to be taken for granted, however, to be a unique, creative and fulfilled artist, faithfully reproducing is not the most important skill.(unless you want a job in a third-world painting sweatshop.)

Many beginners launch into a drawing or painting with a photo alongside them, faithfully believing that if they can just make it look like the photo, a nice artwork will follow.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS FOR USING PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE

THE CAMERA

* low-resolution photos from the internet will not usually provide the level of detail you need for drawing or painting complex subjects.. Using other people's photos just for reference detail is otherwise not a legal problem unless you do basically create a replica and try to earn $$ from it.

* even just your phone camera is fine if you do not have a camera of any other standard

* often what you see in the lens is not going to show as well on screen or printed, so try to get shots of your subject close up as well for specific details if you may need them

* use the highest resolution you have, it can always be decreased for storage later

THE SHOT

* for landscape, try to take shots that capture the lighting, shadows, mood, weather etc as well as physical details you want to remember.

* try to compose well with your camera (thinking of where your focal point will be), but always take enough variations (close and further away) to allow your final composition to be re-arranged in any way you choose so that you can still support from a light and shade point of view. Make notes at the scene as well to support your compositional plan.

* sometimes it is helpful to include (or make notes on) an object of known size if relative proportions could be confusing later (eg, a person, animal, gate, doorway)

* if you don’t have a panoramic lens, just pan around and get three or four views which you can utilise later. You will no doubt need to get creative with the arrangement of the details anyway(in panoramic compositions), so even if you do not have image manipulation software (e.g. Photoshop) which can be handy in utilising multiple references to play with compositional ideas, having the other shots will enable you to draw or paint an extended area.

* with figure and still life, try to set up stunning lighting effects for the photos, rather than trying to fudge them later

USING IMAGE MANIPULATION?

* If you love all things digital, you may well enjoy using a program like Photoshop or Gimp to plan your compositions. You can create layers, hide and unhide them, crop, move, increase the contrast, saturation, brightness, proportions etc, run filters to give effects like watercolour, paint daubs etc, replace and enhance individual colours, cut and paste it goes on literally forever.

* there was a time when a fine artist would spend many weeks or months drawing and sketching multiple studies before even starting a canvas. This was to nut out all possibilities and plan the tonal pattern, compositional arrangement, and colour relationships fully and also to get details very accurately. There is a Composition and Design Module to further help students in this area.

* Along came the camera and multiple sessions with a model became less necessary, revisiting a scene either... was that cheating? No …Degas and Toulouse Latrec did not think so, simply using the latest technology to facilitate their planning process. Our available technology allows us even more choices. It is still the artist who is manipulating and testing, just quicker and in new ways.

PUTTING TOGETHER COMBINED FORMS OF REFERENCE

* Without an image manipulation program, using more than one reference to create a composition can surely bring up some challenges. e.g.. rectifying different light sources, varying relative proportions etc. This may lead to a need to 'fudging' (making it up!!), a practice which can only be truly successful after lots of practice with the real thing (e.g. shadows created, reflected light) or a freaky savant-like brain.

* Case in Point - One photo is a kangaroo that a student wanted to use in her scene, a second reference is one she already had of a few more kangaroos, both with different light sources. Not only does she have the challenge of getting the shape and nature right of an animal she has never drawn or painted before, but she also has to 'fudge' a new light source for the other kangaroo.

* OK, she could flip the new guy horizontally in Photoshop (another handy use for an artist), then she could shrink him a bit to fit into the background where she wanted him.

* Without the software approach, it is still possible to do this all by hand in your preliminary studies, as long as you remember to assimilate the new guy into his relative background and light source consistently.

USING OLDER METHODS

I knew artists who have used the enlarged feature of photocopiers to manipulate mixed references. To me, the time involved could have been better spent drawing, than manually getting the relative proportions correct.

Acetate or plastic protectors can be handy for trying out different crops (you can draw on them with a marker and remove them just like in Photoshop layers), with a larger piece of paper in the format of your planned final substrate (canvas, board or paper) you can cut and paste features from your reference materials and draw a background around them, planning your composition as you go along. You may need to use a grid to proportionally add a subject into your study.(you can learn this in the Foundation Drawing Course). 

COLOURS

The best advice is to not make a habit of simply copying the colours you see in a reference photo.(What are we, a Fuji or a Canon??) You are missing a golden opportunity to learn and practice using colour intelligently and create harmonious schemes/colour relationships that sing your story to the viewer and enhance the mood and expression. You can learn about this yourself with the 'Colour Made Easy’ Module.

Arguably, even more, important than colour mastery in a beginner's journey towards great achievements in painting, value and contrast are essential to conquer. Never rely on a photographic image to dictate your value range,  tonal pattern, or specific areas of contrast. etc.

Even if you are a maestro with the camera, when you are creating your composition, the relative values and how they are arranged must be all controlled by you. 

Photos also often lose much of the light and colour that can be magical in shadow areas. Learning to recreate these will do wonders for your efforts in mastering your compositions. (for more on using light and shade, see the Module:Tone, Contrast, Light & Shade) decent