Ask Stape; why not just work from photos?

Dear Stape;

I've been following your blog for a while now and while not a real 'painter' (I paint digitally, not with traditional medium), I still love reading your columns and advice.

My question is on this line of your last update entitled 'Take That':

"Learning to paint landscapes from a photo is like learning to swim at home on the sofa.

I'm wondering - why? Is it because our peripheral vision? I'm just trying to have a more complete understanding of this. I mean, is the photo of the landscape not the same as the landscape? (minus the obvious fact that it is cropped)? What are the benefits, etc? (outside of some nice fresh air!)

Signed; Morlock

Dear Morlock;

I could give you a lot of different technical reasons about depth of field and inaccurate color, cropping, the difficulty of creating that D which is three from D by two image. But there is one really, really good reason I can give you that will slay the beastie once and for all.

Can you imagine me saying " I was so moved by this lovely photograph that I painted this picture?" I didn't think so!
If I am outside on location I am experiencing the beauty of nature before me. I convey that through my paintings. I love this world and I want to do something with that. If you are working from a photo it is like doing a portrait of a cadaver. A painting from a photo is a design project or a cold rendering, but the spark and excitement of the experienced world is gone. If you get the same thrill from a photo as from life, you might as well marry a girlie magazine.
Art comes from passion and inspiration, that's why its called art and not mechanics.

That being said, there are times when photographs are useful. There are fleeting effects, posthumous portrait commissions (often of dogs for some weird reason) and places that are impossible to set up an easel. It is a different thing if you are a very experienced artist who has learned to paint outside, (which is where the landscape is stored). Painting a long time outside gives you a mental library of the moves that nature likes to make. I virtually never start a painting from a photograph, but I do take photos of the locations and sometimes use them while finishing in the studio. When I do, I never let the photo use me.

One of the problems with working from photos is that when I stand before the landscape I have binocular vision, I see that D which is three, I use a convention called "form" to mimic that experience. I can't do that from a photo. The colors in a photo are very different than what the eye perceives, I don't copy those colors but they are my starting point. Lastly even a 30 by 50 monitor is far smaller than the viewable image I get outside, its as big as the whole world.

When I am on painting trips I often am struck by a scene and I photograph it, thinking that it would make a great picture. When I get it home I am always surprised, it seems like the picture opportunity has evaporated somehow. I always think, "why did I take that, what did I think was there?".
...................................Stape