Have you ever started painting from a photo, only to feel that the final result just doesn’t capture the magic of the scene? Maybe it feels flat, overly detailed, or simply uninspiring. While photos are an incredible resource for artists, they don’t always translate directly into great paintings.
Art isn’t just about copying reality — it’s about interpreting it, finding the essence of a scene, and bringing it to life in a unique way. One of the key tools for achieving this is composition. In this post, I’ll explore why photos can fall short as references, the importance of composition in landscape art, and how you can elevate your work by rethinking how you approach photo references.
Why Photos Don’t Always Work as Paintings
While photos capture the world around us with precision, they don’t always tell a story or create the visual harmony we expect in a painting. Here’s why:
Photos Capture Everything: A photo includes every detail, whether it adds to the story or not. This can overwhelm a painting and distract from the main focal point.
Flattened Depth: Photos reduce a three-dimensional scene to two dimensions, often losing the sense of depth that makes landscapes compelling.
No Emotional Guidance: A quickly made photo doesn’t inherently tell the viewer where to look or what to feel. It’s up to the artist to create a narrative.
Color Limitations: Cameras don’t always capture the richness or subtlety of colors, leaving some landscapes looking dull or unbalanced. Don't forget that as an artist you can use any color you want instead of just follow the colors captured by a camera!
As artists, it’s our job to take the raw material of a photo and turn it into something more expressive, dynamic, and memorable. There are many factors, which can turn a photo into a successful painting, such as value and contract, color harmony, perspective, simplification and, importantly, composition. Let's talk about the composition in more details in this post.
Why Composition Matters in Landscape Art
Composition is the backbone of any great painting. It organizes the elements of a scene to create harmony, focus, and movement. Without strong composition, even the most visually stunning photo can feel flat or chaotic when translated into art. Here’s why composition is so important:
It Focuses Attention: A well-composed painting tells the viewer exactly where to look, whether it’s a dramatic tree, a mountain peak, or a glowing sunset.
It Evokes Emotion: By arranging elements thoughtfully, you can create a mood — whether serene, dramatic, or mysterious.
It Simplifies the Scene: Good composition distills a busy scene into its essential parts, allowing the painting to feel intentional and cohesive.
It Guides the Viewer’s Eye: Leading lines, focal points, and balanced arrangements create a visual journey through the painting.
5 Easy Ways to Improve Composition in Your Artwork
The composition is a huge topic, which is a key point of many excellent books and, of course, deserves a series of posts. For now, let's take into consideration few easy practical points, which you can use in your work immediately to improve it:
Start with the Focal Point: Decide what’s most important in the scene — maybe it’s a tree, a mountain peak, or a winding river. Build the composition around this focal point.
Use the Rule of Thirds: Divide your canvas into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. Placing key elements along these lines or at their intersections creates a balanced and dynamic composition.
Simplify the Scene: Ask yourself, what can I remove to make the painting stronger? Too many elements can overwhelm the viewer and dilute your message.
Play with Cropping and Framing: Don’t feel constrained by the photo. Crop the scene, zoom in on details, or adjust the perspective to enhance the composition.
Experiment with Leading Lines: Roads, rivers, or even shadows can guide the viewer’s eye toward the focal point. Use these elements strategically.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities!
Landscape Art Club members often mention that some weekly photos are “too difficult” or “too ordinary.” And that’s intentional! Not every reference will have perfect composition, colors, or lighting. The goal is to train your artistic eye — to see potential in a scene and make it special.
For example, a photo may lack a clear focal point, but that’s an opportunity for you to crop, reframe, or simplify it to suit your vision. The beauty of art lies in how you reinterpret reality. Let’s take a look at some examples from past Landscape Art Club weekly challenges. These photos, while beautiful, also illustrate why copying them directly might not work — and how composition can transform them.
Photo Strengths: The turquoise water is eye-catching, contrasting beautifully with the rocky hills and small village.
Challenges as a Painting: The photo has a horizontal structure with stacked layers (water, village, cliffs, sky), which can feel static. The lack of a clear focal point (should it be the boat, the water, or the village?) makes it difficult to create a strong narrative.
Solution: Crop to focus on the boat and its reflections, or use the contrast between water and cliffs to create a more dynamic composition. Add diagonal lines or softer transitions between layers to break up the rigidity of the horizontal structure.
Photo Strengths: The vibrant flowers and grand palace create layers of visual interest, drawing the eye through the scene.
Challenges as a Painting: The detailed foreground can overwhelm the viewer, leaving the palace feeling secondary and disconnected. The abundance of bright flowers might compete with the architecture, rather than complementing it.
Solution: Choose whether to focus on the flowers or the palace. Simplify the foreground to direct attention upward or blur the palace slightly to emphasize the vibrancy of the garden.
Not every photo needs to be perfect to inspire great art!
In fact, the “ordinary” photos, those with imperfect compositions or subtle details, are often the ones that help us grow the most as artists. The goal is to train your eye to see the potential in a scene and use artistic tools to bring it to life, and playing with the composition is a great way to do so. Don’t feel bound by the photo’s original framing — use it as a jumping-off point.
Do you struggle with composition? How do you adapt challenging photos into compelling paintings?
Comment below with your thoughts!
Happy to be hear. I have this problem of including everything i see in the photo. Great tips here to declutter and compose the painting better. Thanks!