Using a Camera for Painting Reference

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Portrait of Photographer Christian Franzen Oil
Joaquin Sorolla 1901 (cropped)

With the advances in digital cameras and ease of processing digital images, it is quite common for artists to use their digital images as the basis for paintings. However, it is not advisable to use them as the only reference! The reason for this is that the camera cannot see the way our eyes and brain can see. For one thing, most cameras do not have binocular, three-dimensional vision.

This makes a huge difference when painting from life. Cameras flatten depth of field and cause other distortions to the subject of which you may not be consciously aware. Human eyes only focus sharply on the center of interest in our view. Automatic digital cameras tend to put everything in focus creating an unrealistic and unnatural image. Using a camera is always a compromise, and the user must carefully select the proper f-stop to obtain focus on only the su…