The poignant and elegant artistry of Jillian Tamaki does justice to life’s realities without looking exactly like it. From her lovely multi-award winning book, Just One Summer. To see more of the artist’s work, go here.
“The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” — Susan Sontag
It’s common for the modern day artists to use photography (or moving photography such as video) to capture reference for use in their own non-photographic art. But photography is an incredibly powerful medium, a beautiful art in it’s own right, with the ability to record, ignite and reinterpret the world around us in a way that we’re often unaware of.
Susan Sontag’s profound and insightful book On Photography (published in 1977) remains an outstanding discussion on the power and influence of the photographic image that feels particularly profound and prescient today.
Take the words of Maria Popova (author of the insightful and extraordinary blog Brain Pickings) on her reflection of Susan Sontag’s excellent book On Photography:
“Images which idealize (like most fashion and animal photography) are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness (like class pictures, still lifes of the bleaker sort, and mug shots). There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera … this aggression precipitates a kind of social media violence of self-assertion — a forcible framing of our identity for presentation, for idealization, for currency in an economy of envy.” — Maria Popova
Maria Popova’s blog post goes into wonderful analysis and explanation of the concepts and implications of the camera discussed in Sontag’s book that doesn’t need to be repeated here. But what we, as artists, must be aware of is that this overwhelming phenomena — the domination of photographic images which has heavily affected how we live and how we see ourselves and each other in society — has also altered who we are at the core as painters, animators and filmmakers, and in turn how we’re interpreting or reinterpreting nature in our own separate creations.
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch in a motion-capture suit during his performance for Smaug in the Peter Jackson’s Hobbit series. Is this the future of animation? Will animators become merely technicians to clean up actors’ performances rather than create them? Although this is now common-place in game and VFX applications, I have personally seen motion-capture data successfully applied to cartoon designs.
There are some artists out there that really stand by the total devotion and usage of photography and video to copy or create their art. Others are less excited about giving up their visual artistry to the whims of the camera, and prefer, almost 100% of the time, to take their inspiration from the source directly — i.e. from nature and from their own minds. There are others still, like myself, who believe that photographic reference has its usefulness, when used for the appropriate material, to aid in the research needed for full out exploration, and ultimately, inspiration. At the very least it gets the animator off and out of his seat and into feeling the action. What it shouldn’t be is something that acts solely as ‘THE’ source to be thoughtlessly duplicated. My own biased opinion is that such approach is not only unauthentic, but lazy and ultimately, pointless.
Live reference photostats for Walt Disney’s 1961 animated classic, 101 Dalmations. Disney animators always had the reference they needed for their characters. Here, you can see how legendary animator Marc Davis reinterprets the action depicted by live actors, Mary Wickes and Betty Lou Gerson.
Why not duplicate if you can achieve acceptable or even moderately successful results? Firstly, because of the concept of dilution — much like photocopying a photocopy — it degrades the image and thus degrades the experience, and thereby culminating into an inferior result. Secondly, it aids in shutting off our creative instincts, to expound, distort and reinterpret data in a new and more creative fashion. There is much more to art than what is merely and objectively seen and dutifully duplicated.
The rather dated effects of rotoscope, as seen here in Fleischer studios 1939 animated show, Gulliver’s Travels. Although the technology is much improved now, both rotoscope and pure motion-capture has its limitations — namely the lack of graphic artistry and interest. Even the best motion-captured data needs to be heavily tweaked and polished by hand, in order for it to look half respectable.
Furthermore, there’s distortion of the experience by any optical device — what you captured isn’t reality — because all fully realized experience is beyond mere sight and sound. You can easily test this yourself. For example, take the activity of looking at the changing of colors of leaves on a cool autumn day – the tremendous beauty of the sunlight piercing thru the half-worn leaves, into near translucent wonder, flickering in the wind, complemented by its siblings still dancing in the air. I did this just this past fall — seeing how amazing it looked and felt — I took out the smartphone and tried, mightily I add, to capture the experience. I couldn’t. In fact, I failed miserably despite numerous attempts, changing camera settings and angles of view.
The majestic photography of Ansel Adams is known to capture nature’s magnanimous beauty, but it’s still a creative choice, one carefully selected and uniquely interpreted by the artist.
It’s common for captured images to feel dull, diluted, flat, and practically lifeless in comparison to real live experience. It’s not surprising that photography itself is an art and craft, one requiring great skill and experience to master, in order to capture just a sliver of that beauty in celluloid or digital form. But even in the hands of a master photographer, the photograph will never be more than an interpretation, for reality could never be captured — its experience, unique to a specific time and place, has passed. Beyond the limited field of vision, life and nature can rarely come close to being duplicated in art, either on film or in paint.
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.” — Andrew Wyeth
In order for artists to get as close as possible to the source in their work, we must keep this dilution of the direct experience to a minimum. So, for painters and animators alike, copying too closely from photographed sources is much like making a poor copy of a poor copy. The age old advice of ‘drawing from life’ is not just an issue of artistic snobbery.
Lucian Freud’s paintings carry an intensity and authenticity that is completely unique to both his experience and his interpretation of his models. He was also known to come physically and uncomfortably close, sometimes within inches, to his subjects, peering intensely to gauge what was in front of him, as he pondered how to best capture what he saw and felt.
As to our second point, we must also remember that art was always meant to be an interpretation of life, ideas, and visions. To merely copy exactly the colors, light or movement as objectively and coldly as possible is NOT art, and it’s not surprising that those who try to approach art this way, produce not things of beauty but stale, lifeless widgets of hurried, impersonal and thoughtless reproduction. Art is a very personal thing, an introspective interpretation of our universe, shared with the rest of the world. There is no such thing as objectivity in art.
My old friend and colleague Graham Annable (Oscar-nominated co-director of Box Trolls) made a huge name for himself with his outstandingly funny animated comic strip, Grickle. Graham’s work stretches the limits of space and time to play on the psyche of his characters and his audience. He is, in my opinion, one of the funniest guys on the internet. To witness more of Graham’s genius, visit here.
So, in summary, use caution when using photographic reference, and try to keep in mind that it’s just that, reference. Copying is great for learning, but to blindly copy, is not creation, and thus, not art.
“Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.” — Paul Cezanne