Why does that picture look like a Painting?

Creek-Reflection_5357

An architect recently emailed me about some prints he has in his office:

It's interesting that they look just like paintings. I see your photos installed in our office almost every day. It's amazing to see how the prints looks different at different distances.

He asked me to explain how I do that.

People often tell me that my prints look like paintings. I always say "thank you" since that is one of my goals.

I don't accomplish that with any tricks in Photoshop. Instead, it probably has to do with how I see things. My graduate MFA training in art focused on painting. Also, I have been to countless museum shows and own hundreds of art books, mostly about painting. That background has trained my eye and I suspect that is what you may be responding to in my prints.

I consciously use  "painterly conventions" when working up my images. For example, if they are landscapes I might reduce the contrast of the distance and enhance the warmth of the foreground, just like Renaissance painters. Just as in creating a painting, I might simplify a scene. I don't pretend that what I present in the print is an exact replica of what I saw, instead, it is what I want to be there. I often remove distracting elements to strengthen the composition. I will usually spend a few hours working up an individual image to make it "sing".

Another idea I learned in painting was to identify and accentuate the minor colors. That energizes the surface of the print.

What I print on also makes a difference. My prints are almost always printed on matte paper or canvas. That lends more of a fine art look than the photographic look of glossy paper.

Regarding "the prints looks different at different distances." this too gets back to some of my training. One of my painting professors (Bill Hawk) used to say "don't create one-liners". He encouraged adding elements that would reward prolonged viewing. Create images that are interesting when viewed at a distance, but consider elements that might be revealed only with close viewing.

Regarding the picture above (Creek-Reflection_5357), that is a fairly strait shot. What you see is close to what I saw in my viewfinder. I removed some debris on the surface of the water. I slightly enhanced the pink and blue colors. But the trick with this shot was to find  and correctly frame the right reflection.

Like many of my images, I took this on our property in rural Missouri. I was walking along Hiller's Creek intentionally looking for reflections. It was peak spring. The leaves had just come out on the trees recently and and they glowed as the sun came through them. In order to isolate just a small part of the scene I used a telephoto lens (400 mm f/4). This allowed me to simplify the composition by keeping out distracting elements.

Comments

[John Storjohann]

What resonates with me is not so much the description of your work as being "painterly" but rather the comment of simplifying a scene. The complexity - and majestic beauty - of nature is just as present in grasslands of Missouri as it is in the Tetons or the Cascades; you just have to slow down a bit to notice it. Your images do just that...you force (or more appropriately, invite) the viewer to slow down...to notice the minute details, the subtle splashes of color and the patterns and symmetry of what is often right before us; hopefully it also gets the viewer to slow down a bit on their own the next time they walk through a field. Over the past two weekends I've been doing some work with reflections as well, with water lilies, and the PACE of my photography has slowed and changed...and made me look a bit more at what I am seeing (if that makes sense). Shooting reflections is dependent on so much...the wind sweeping across the surface of the water, the light dappling atop surface imperfections, abstractions if the water is less than mirror like, to the surreal quality of that perfect moment when there's no movement of the water at all. Nice post, Henry. Hope to see you soon.