PhotoHog

I am not a good photographer.

And by saying that I don't mean that I crop heads out of the picture, or fail to focus properly, or skew the horizon, I mean that I don't take photos with pure intentions (and sometimes I do skew the horizons...) And in this facebookian world, perhaps few people are pure of camera anymore. But I've almost always plotted and schemed my digital images with the idea that I will use each pretty picture as a reference for a painting. The photos I take are a means to an end. A jumping off point. If I do take a picture for the sake of it, then I put much less thought into the composition and the lighting, etc.

Photos are so easy to take though--whereas time to paint is incomprehensible most of the time. Especially this week. And next week will likely feel the same.

But sometimes I do manage to get from vista to click to upload to composition to actual paint on actual canvass.... like here:

Here is a photo I took of some rowboats in southern Europe.

Much more fun, right? Once I plotted their position I barely looked at the original picture again. Real life colors don't interest me too much. I experimented with the sea floor and waves with impunity and was mostly pleased with all the strange bits. The water is much less realistic than the boats (which is saying something) and there is a lot of texture that this photo doesn't really capture. 

I really like how the shadows turned out 

Without shadows, a painting is anchor-less

Each boat had to have its own personality.

(I do not enjoy taking photos of paintings based on my photos)