Building The Reference
Q: When you stage your own reference photos, what are you actually looking for? What makes a shot good enough to paint from?
A: Reference building is a very personal thing, and everyone develops their own way of doing it. I tend to shoot my references with a digital camera and then edit them in Photoshop. Other artists might have a much simpler process, while some have extremely complex setups. However you decide to build your reference material, it should work for you and support the goals you have for the painting.
For me, the first thing I look for is usability. If a photo is overexposed, underexposed, or out of focus, you start losing information. It is also really easy to take a photo and not realize until later that it is slightly blurry. If that information is not there, I cannot paint it. I also think about recognizability, or how quickly the subject reads at a glance. Lighting plays a big role in that. If a subject is lit from an unusual or unfamiliar angle, especially in a way we are not used to seeing it, some of that immediate recognition can be lost. That does not mean unusual lighting is bad, but it is something worth being aware of. After that, I start looking at composition, and that is usually where I spend most of my time. Sometimes I will go through hundreds of photos before I find the composition that feels right.
With my current painting, I thought I had already decided on the image I was going to use. Then one day I went back through all of the photos again and found another one that was much stronger. The composition worked better, the lighting was better, and as soon as I saw it, I knew that was the one. That happens pretty often in my process. I might think I have already made the decision, but going back through the photos a second time can completely change my mind. None of this is to say that these are hard and fast rules that every artist should follow. Reference building is personal, and the choices you make should ultimately serve your own work and what you are trying to communicate. These are simply a few considerations that I have found useful when deciding which reference is worth pursuing.
