[Marvin Mattelson]

A painting starts with an artistic vision. I think it is imperative to thoughtfully plan out a painting by taking into consideration tonal, color and light patterns, and how they contribute to the overall composition. To grab shoot a large variety of differing compositions and lighting arrangements is placing too much faith in being the beneficiary of one lucky shot. Sort of like playing the Portrait Painters Lottery? Even if it pans out, you are eventually going to be pulling out some short straws. Artistic vision after the fact is akin to letting the horse you are riding decide your destination. This approach, I believe, is the snapshot approach that Karin mentioned.

We all admire the wonderful compositions of the master painters of yore. However they never randomly started painting without a plan. I think the greatest problem with using photography is this abuse of the planning stage.

In addition, the aforementioned old masters would often add background elements which were obviously not in their studios. Painting out of doors was not attempted until later in the nineteenth century (after the invention of metal paint tubes allowed artists to be more mobile). The objective was to sketch on location or build miniature sets which would later be incorporated into the picture.

This is the way artists have been compositing the elements of their paintings for centuries. That said, what is an intelligent approach to take to insure a continuity and a sense of naturalism is realized? The first consideration is that the background must have a light source consistent with the subject.

This requires skill in analyzing the background and either recreating it on the subject or coming up with a scenario in which two divergent lighting schemes can feasibly coexist. For example, the subject may be under an awning or a tree, in front of a vista. However, one must be careful to include any influences of any light source in the background (sunset sky for example) on the foreground elements, otherwise the result can have the flattened look of a model placed in front of a photographer's painted background. Not good if you are interested in a naturalistic as opposed to a theatrical feeling.

So the basic rule of thumb is to have your background worked out before you shoot your model. Try to arrange your lights in a way that will best work with the lighting in the background you have chosen. When you shoot your subject try to match the general tone (if not color as well) to put behind them, since what is behind influences the edge values and color. Remember the idea is to try to recreate as much of a natural feeling as possible. The light reflecting from all the different elements in a scene bounce into the various shadows and this goes a long way towards achieving pictorial unity.