Why choose an oil portrait over a professionally done photo

[Allan Rahbek]

Look at it this way;
I have never seen a photo that looks like a painting, they always miss by yards.

A painting is build up from elements that the painter sees or chose to see.
A photo is a cropping of what is in front of the photographer, the two methods of building a picture mix like oil and water.

People that mean to praise the painter by telling her that it's almost like a photo...welll

On the other side I believe that the photographer try to be selective and pick the elements, so I could suggest that we, in return, praise their pass time results as almost as good as paintings. Knowing they will never meet the ultimate creation because the photo is only a crop, while we make things up, create.

[Chris Kolupski]

Interesting question that I continue to confront, living in Rochester, NY, where photography and xerography have built the city.

Because photography is so ingrained around here, traditional portraiture has never been as popular as down south. And few pay the fees common in the southern portrait market. Thus, I have focused on smaller, faster portraits painted entirely from life. Surprise is that the 2-3 hour sitting is becoming a selling point precisely because it is so utterly distinct form photography. And people are curious about the painting process.

Portraits from life are a collaboration. My sitter is directly involved in the painting process. They are working for success just as I am. They see the results of their work. They will never forget the sitting. While I am painting them, they often relate the story of another portrait in their home. Sometimes they tell about watching its creation, too. Sometimes they were the one who sat. Always they describe the importance of the portrait to them, and how it will always stay in the family. Photographs stay in the family, too, collecting dust in a box somewhere. The portrait is on the wall and will stay there no matter how many times the family moves. No matter how many generations it passes down to.

My own feelings toward the three oil sketches I painted of my daughter are more difficult to describe and tend toward schmaltz. But there they are, sloppy little sketches painted from life while she slept. One in her bassinet, two at her mother's breast, asleep after feeding. Something about them -and this is where the schmaltz enters -embodies her little life better than any photograph, and we have thousands of photographs of her. Beyond values, drawing, edges, chroma -my daughter is in those sketches.