By Jim Pence

I just came back from a relaxing week of vacation at a cottage on Lake Michigan. And, like most tourists, I took a lot of pictures. Since this was a family reunion, I wasn’t the only one taking photos. Near the end of the week, my brother-in-law began to compile a CD with all of the pictures taken that week so that everyone in the family could share them.

“Would you like to put your pictures on the group CD?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said. “But they aren’t very interesting.”

When he asked why, I explained that most of the pictures I took were reference photos for paintings that I’d like to do sometime down the line.

He said that was okay and I gave him the memory card from my phone.

Later, my daughter confirmed that my pictures were pretty boring.

Boring?

Perhaps a better description is repetitive. You see, instead of taking the typical “tourist” type picture of scenes of interest, I took a lot of pictures of the same things.

For example, just outside the cottage sat a small one-person sailboat that had been turned into a planter. I took about twenty pictures of that little boat. I shot from all angles. I also took photos at different times during the day so that I could get the light hitting it different ways.

The key to taking reference photos is thinking like an artist, not a tourist.

Tourists take pictures to capture memories.

Artists take pictures to study a subject.

While we were in Michigan I saw several things that I wanted to paint:

the sailboat,

a very colorful beach umbrella,

an old stone fireplace that was the only “survivor” of a fire,

a steep staircase leading down to the beach,

and (duh!) the beach.

And, although I shot over a hundred pictures, they were all different angles of these five subjects. (Now you can understand why my daughter thought my pictures were boring.)

Next week, I’ll show you how to combine two of these pictures to create a new drawing.

Until then, keep drawing – and have fun!