Snap, Crop, Zoom, Adjust, Sit, Click, Draw, Draw, Draw

I'm getting closer to the mom. The drawing is still not on the mark,but closer to the truth. Note the study lines for analyzing what relates to what where. Very Important. Then there's the shading--depicting volume. I'll tell you about that later.

These other head studies were drawn prior to the finished drawings I had in my mind. You can't draw enough to get thoroughly acquainted with proportions, crucial points and precise definition lines that come together to make an acceptable likeness of a person--especially when working from a snapshot. Actually trying to get a decent portrait from a snapshot is a joke, a fool's game,nonetheless...

A snapshot taken on the run during some event, seldom...no, rarely comes out with everybody looking their best in their opinion and maybe your's too. The exposure won't be right; there might be an unwanted hot spot bouncing off some reflective item or a tree growing out of somebody's head, and of course the usuals --red eye,handshake, environmental lighting...but you know the pitfalls of getting a good picture; they're in your family albums.

That's why,if you're very serious about getting a good shot, you take a zillion pictures hoping one will be the perfect one--and sometimes that happens, but mostly it doesn't. If you're really very serious about getting a good shot of a person. You get them to come over and you set up the lights and the backdrop and the reflective umbrellas and fool around with those things for an hour or so before squeezing off the first shot from the tripod---and then squeeze another and another. A good shot is a lot of work, a lot of time. And you're not done.

Then comes working with the photographs. TG for our computer photo programs and such tools as crop, Zoom, exposure, vividness, sharpness, color and convert to black and white adjustment options. All aids help clarify the features and familiarize the artist with their subject. And you're still not done.

Volume (indicated through shading),is an important issue in portraiture. The truth of it can only be studied with the subject in front of you in the studio.Photos flatten us out and put on pounds,10 to be exact. I learned that when I modeled. I was too fit to be a still life photographic model--at 125 pounds, I was ten pounds too fit. Disappointed, but rather healthy than ugly, I worked live shows and training films instead.

All of these preliminary drawings came from snapshots. I've never been able to get anybody to sit for me. So GE is all I can hope for in portraiture, while I work on my photographic skills and become an absolute pest at family gatherings. Everybody say cheeseburgers.