shooting my own reference photos
I started my Master's degree in bio after working for almost ten years in the entertainment art (film/games/etc) field. After almost a decade of making art for production pipelines, I have been undergoing a journey of asking myself what type of art I want to make for myself.
I stitched together a few photos like a collage to create this reference on the right.
I grew up drawing constantly, especially once I was in middle school. We didn't have a lot of screens in the house, so a lot of our spare time was spent reading and going outside. We had the luxury of a big backyard in rural-ish Indiana that led out to the woods and a creek. I didn't grow up knowing the names of the trees or birds, but I had a connection to nature. As I've gotten older- like many others- I have been reclaiming my outdoor kid past. I wanted my art to be a part of that experience rather than separate.
Illustration of two urban coyotes. I took the reference photos on a cross-country drive with a friend.
I had a life-altering back injury right as COVID kicked off in 2020. Since then, I have been in a gradual state of recovery both physically and mentally. This led me originally to birding because walking was one gentle activity that I could consistently enjoy while in the turbulence of the injury. From the very beginning, I skipped the binoculars and started birding with a camera.
Other than a single film photography class I took in high school, I barely knew how to interact with the hardware. Since then, I have taken photos of thousands of bug, bird, and mammal species, almost all of which are local to home. Not only has this made my world bigger as a person, but also specifically as an artist.
I love to go outside, find something new, and then make art based off of it. Sometimes that means going to a natural area, but it could also mean going to a museum to take photos on my phone of taxidermy references. I am constantly surprised by what nature I can find within 100 feet of my urban apartment. Within a few months, my photography started to become my reference library, built from scratch.
Sketches of hummingbirds from photos I took at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
There's a lot that you can't glean from a photograph. How fast does an animal move? What does the leaf feel like? Is the bee smaller or bigger than you expected? When I take my own references, I capture not only the pixels but also the memory of witnessing the subject. There is so much more surprise and wonder in a photo when I was the one that captured it.
And the best part? I got out of the house, away from my computer, and into fresh air.
I took a burst of photos while this cormorant took flight on the Chicago River.
something special is right in front of you
We are constantly exposed to photos and videos of novel things on social media. Whoever can show the most surprising image wins the algorithm game. While in some ways this has made us more aware of lesser-known features of nature around the world, it has also made our understanding of those things shallow and rushed. Experiencing the outdoors through a screen is only a tiny fraction of what it's like to see it in person, and it's easy to underestimate the diversity and excitement of nature within our reach.
I had a conversation with a European coworker a few months ago in which I said I wanted so badly to see European robins. Her immediate reaction was how much she wanted to see American robins. The next time I went outside, I saw our beautiful backyard birds in a different light. They were all I took take photos of for weeks. I would stop in my tracks while walking home from the grocery store to watch them dig up worms, juveniles with floppy feathers hopping along behind mom. The allure of exoticism makes us excited about rare animals around the world- but what about the amazing animals hanging out in our backyards that are exotic and rare to someone else?
Portrait referencing my favorite backyard bird.
I wanted my experience making art to stretch in many dimensions. I wanted it to be based on an intimacy with my subject, rather than on an abstraction of it. I have found in my years of teaching and leading artist teams that sometimes we fail to see the original material often enough. I can search Google images for reference photos (and often still do!) but when possible, I opt to put on my walking shoes, pack up my camera, and find the subject for myself. The conception of my art starts long before my pen hits my tablet, and I have rebuilt my relationship to my creative self by un-digitizing part of my digital art.