Photos Lie - Yes They Do!

Globe In Pitcher © Tien Frogget

During my last Drawing Workshop, we were discussing how photos lie. Newbies to the art world often use photos as research believing that they show the truth.

Photographers know that if you expose a scene for a long period of time, people can walk in and out of the camera shot - yet the final photo won't show anyone - yet they were there.

We use wide angle lenses, filters, special effects and Photoshop. Portrait photographers employ so many light sources that a portrait will show no shadows, lines, creases - AND DEPTH! Yet we will still insist that what we 'see' is true.

This actually isn't the case. I often paint from photographs that don't capture the truth of a subject. In this way, it makes it much more important to understand to paint more than just what you see. This is especially true when painting people or animals -- understanding the bone and muscle systems in the body will help you to accurately reproduce it on paper and canvas. Working from photographs will always help improve your art -- but in the end, the knowledge needs to be there, too.