Home Forums The Town Center Café Guerbois seeing: Photo vs Painting

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  • #992986
    BeLing
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        I’ve been thinking of the difference in viewing a photo from viewing a painting.

        There was a photo taken from a cliff, of a long white-water run, or rapids, I don’t know what you call them, cliffs and foam and water piling over sharp boulders. At the very top was a tiny, vulnerable, very red rubber raft, about to tip into the currents.

        It was an amazing, scary photo. I thought: “Would it make any difference if this were a painting?” And I immediately felt it would, that it would seem contrived, corny, fake! I wouldn’t like it much. Even though all the composition, lines, color were identical! How weird.

        Then there was a picture of an old Polynesian covered with tattoos. It was incredible how the tattoos were carved into his cheeks, crawled around his nose, etc. And when I looked for an explanation of this picture, it turned out to be a painting! I now was amazed more by the way the hair was depicted (barely a wisp) and how the eyes were painted, and so on.

        How subjects affect us is probably a similar thing. (For example, I like any pictures with a well-drawn horse.) After a century or two, perhaps pre-conditioned responses will be stripped of a work, and only then, perhaps, can a picture be seen, all by itself, for better or worse.

        #1224609
        Folio
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            I have a window which is full of potted plants instead of curtains and glass. When I look at it I see the lush green of the ferns and I like it. But when I take a photo of it, the camera sees something else: it sees that many of the lush green fronds are in fact withered and brown and badly in need of clipping! I prefer my own way of seeing to the camera’s … :lol:

            Mary

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            #1224612
            AllisonR
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                Of course there are huge differences between painting and photography, just like painting and say sculpture. If something is really powerful and wonderful as a photo, in my view, one should leave it alone. But if it is a photo that would be better as a painting, and you use photos, then go for it.

                There are a few photos on my mac that I originally wanted to paint. Now I look at them, and all most all of them I say – it has said all it has to say as a photo, there is nothing powerful I could add by making it a painting. So I won’t.

                There are two that I will definitely paint one day though. One is my son standing on an american flag playing a flute, with all my old silk paintings in the background. It is the scene that I will use, the idea, the actual photo isn’t really anything. Plus, my son was probably 4 at the time, now he is 10.

                The other photo is the most important painting I will ever to, up to the time I do it, for sure. It has been in planning for 8 years. I will use the photo, because the woman I was at the time is gone, so is the baby, so is everything, but that photo symbolises so very very much to me, that it must be painted. I am waiting until I am good enough with the human form to do it justice. I guess my real worry is what will come AFTER?

                Being born places you at a greater risk of dying later in life.

                http://www.artallison.com/
                #1224613
                AllisonR
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                    I have a window which is full of potted plants instead of curtains and glass. When I look at it I see the lush green of the ferns and I like it. But when I take a photo of it, the camera sees something else: it sees that many of the lush green fronds are in fact withered and brown and badly in need of clipping! I prefer my own way of seeing to the camera’s … :lol:

                    I prefer your view as well. That’s one of he reasons I like painting from life – you can “cheat”. With a photo, it is there, or it is not. You can “cheat” but not in the same way, not to the same degree.

                    Being born places you at a greater risk of dying later in life.

                    http://www.artallison.com/
                    #1224622
                    M.L. Schaefer
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                        I think many of us “see what is there,” rather than “what could be there” – whether photograph or real life…. I love to see what is there, in photographs, television, or real life…I look for the beauty of it, the colors of it, the atmosphere of it…and then paint (or try to) the colors of it, the atmosphere of it, and hope to have captured that…not the actual image of it, though. It’s hard to explain…it may not even capture the actual image but the feeling of that image or one like it……..Still hard to explain! :)

                        Margarete

                        When he, the Spirit of truth is come...he will be your Guide... Holy Bible (Old and New Testament)
                        Under the Concrete are Flowers Yet to be Born...from a Chilean Poem

                        #1224588
                        BrianWarner
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                            When I take a photo it is generally to show what is there. When I paint it is to show what I feel, and often will have very little in common with what is actually seen. If I want a copy of the actual view I will stick with the photo.

                            #1224628
                            coolside
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                                …it may not even capture the actual image but the feeling of that image or one like it…

                                The camera does that, too. A photograph is no more ‘real’ than a painting, it just has more detail. Depending on the skill of the photographer, the camera can be made to create very expressive photographs.

                                #1224629
                                coolside
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                                    …It was an amazing, scary photo. I thought: “Would it make any difference if this were a painting?” And I immediately felt it would, that it would seem contrived, corny, fake!

                                    My writer brother has told me that many times you cannot write a real story because real life just seems, well, fake. Like the boat. :-)

                                    #1224592
                                    stlukesguild
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                                        Of course there are huge differences between painting and photography, just like painting and say sculpture. If something is really powerful and wonderful as a photo, in my view, one should leave it alone. But if it is a photo that would be better as a painting, and you use photos, then go for it.

                                        Exactly. Of course there are those works of “Photo-realism” that are intentional and self-conscious comments upon photography. Here I think of Chuck Close…

                                        Gerhard Richter…

                                        … and Hubert de Lartigue:

                                        Living in a culture saturated with photographic imagery I don’t see how painting (and other art forms) informed by or inspired by photography would not be inevitable and as valid as any other.

                                        “Hyper-realism” on the other hand has been around for a long long time. One need only look toward Van Eyck…

                                        Hans Holbein…

                                        Many of the “Little Dutch Masters”…

                                        Anton Raphael Mengs…

                                        Ingres…

                                        Ivan Shishkin…

                                        Albert Bierstadt…

                                        … etc…

                                        I personally prefer paintings that clearly look like paintings… paintings in which the figurative elements are expressively distorted or abstracted in such a way that there is little attempt to mirror visual “reality” or photography. I tend to prefer paintings in which there is an exaggeration or distortion of form, space, and color… in which there is a clear record of the hand of the artist in the mark-making, the brush strokes, and the surface. I use photographs as references… yet you would have a hard time recognizing this from the finished paintings.

                                        In spite of my personal preferences I am open to the admiration of art that is far removed from my own. I admire any number of abstract paintings, Surrealism, Folk-Art, Classicism and Neo-Classicism, the Rococo, Impressionism… and Photo-Realism and Hyper-Realism.

                                        Saintlukesguild-http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
                                        "Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." - John Keats
                                        "Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea."- John Ciardi

                                        #1224625
                                        fritzie
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                                            Sometimes different ways of capturing a subject bring forward something different and important without one being better or worse. If it is an important subject, one might need several angles, or media, to feel one has grasped enough of what one wants to grasp.

                                            Let’s take the subject of a loved one who has passed. One might value a head-on photo, or a painting with less detail, but also a symbol that represents her, like a handerkerchief she used, maybe her perfume, maybe a shoe with an impression of her foot, maybe a recording of her favorite song, or the sound of her voice.

                                            Do you remember her “better” when you look at a painting or a photo or when you hold her sweater?

                                            Or does each bring her to you differently, each with the same validity for the attributes it brings forward?

                                            #1224633

                                            I have a window which is full of potted plants instead of curtains and glass. When I look at it I see the lush green of the ferns and I like it. But when I take a photo of it, the camera sees something else: it sees that many of the lush green fronds are in fact withered and brown and badly in need of clipping! I prefer my own way of seeing to the camera’s … :lol:

                                            How true. It is why there is so much pleasure in seeing and being in a place that can’t be matched with the photo. How many times have I come home and been disappointed in the photo of a place I was happy to sit and paint for hours!

                                            "None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David Thoreau

                                            Moderator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library

                                            #1224642
                                            OLIVE.OYL
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                                                I love looking at photography and its always been a big source of inspiration for me. But I was thinking about what makes photos and paintings different and also, what makes them similar. (I’ll take a stab at explaining this but it might be incoherent. Warning! And I’m not looking to debate anything. This is just another dumb opinion.)

                                                WHICH IS…both can achieve some of the same things like recording, documenting, staging a scene, evoking a mood, technical plays of light. (I’m sure there are similarities that I’m missing.) I think where they differ though is: photos can capture reality EXACTLY as it appears and no painting can do that even if they’re super-hyper-perfectly realistically rendered. We might be FOOLED into thinking a painting is a photo (and this might be nothing more than a fancy parlor trick) but still, it’s another step removed from reality. I think photos are also better at capturing a moment in time (think of something blowing in the wind, smoke billowing, kids jumping…movements) and so there’s that type of “aliveness” in a photo that painting usually lacks.

                                                Since (I believe) a photograph is better at capturing reality and capturing time, it gets us closer to what’s being shown. It’s advantage over painting is that its easier or more likely, that the viewer will be able to have a more intimate relationship WITH THE OBJECT. That’s not to say that a viewer won’t have an intimate moment with a painting, because we’re artists and we know how that’s possible. But most other regular viewers might have to work harder with a painting to find that subject/object relationship. Or the painter’s lack of skill, and despite the artist’s best intentions, might prevent a viewer to feel much of anything resembling intimacy. (I’m sure there are more “deterrents” to connection that I’m missing.)

                                                Photography just alters our perception in ways that paintings don’t. That’s all I think I’m trying to say. (So why didn’t I just say that?!)

                                                And all this is why I also prefer looking at (modern vs. traditional?) paintings that make no bones about the fact that they’re paintings. I like to see texture and brushstrokes and artifical colors, flattened space, illusions, distortions, gestural movements and wild imaginations and all the other things that celebrate paint being paint. What’s the point in pretending that it’s anything else?

                                                #1224657
                                                BeLing
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                                                    So much of the art I see being reproductions, I find the distinctions blur between a photograph (reproduced in a magazine, say) and a photo-realistic painting (reproduced in a book). Which is why I decided to test myself, to see if simply the distinction itself IN MY MIND could affect the way I saw these things. (I don’t know why I do games like this!)

                                                    I’m enjoying your comments, thanks!

                                                    #1224623
                                                    michaeleric
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                                                        In my opinion the only really important thing is how an object of something affects you. Some people are moved by a Damien Hirst. Good for them. Others find aversion or disgust. So be it. If a tree brings you greater peace than a $10 mil art work then the tree is of greater value (in terms of bringing peace).

                                                        I believe that each object, or experience, that elicits a response, whether positive or negative, should be valued on its own merits. If you have a curiosity in making comparisons that’s cool but in the end the photo is the photo and the painting is the painting.

                                                        Michael

                                                        #1224614
                                                        AllisonR
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                                                            Olive – and I am not debating with you either ;) – what you post makes sense to me. That a photo can capture reality as it is at that split second, and that more often it is better than photos at that split second movement – the speed of a kid jumping and giggling at that second or whatever. Also that both photography and painting can stage a scene, evoke a mood, technical plays of light….

                                                            But then I go the opposite to you, and would say that with painting the viewer will be able to have a more intimate relationship WITH THE OBJECT. Because a camera can evoke a mood, a feeling… but only the one that is really there in that split second. A painting more often can capture a mood and feeling much more, because it isn’t reality – the artist has done MORE than a painting could. The sky is bigger, darker, and more menacing than the reality, because he has painted it that way. The bride is more beautiful than life, her dress is redder than life because the artist has dulled the colors next to the dress. The poor have dirtier faces and fingernails, more knotted hair and a few more holes in their clothes than they had when posing for the painting. Heck, it may not have even been a poor person that modelled for the artist, it was the pose plus a lot of the artists imagination.

                                                            Yes, there are exceptions to every rule.

                                                            Being born places you at a greater risk of dying later in life.

                                                            http://www.artallison.com/
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