Combing through my photographs

Franz Valley School Road vineyard • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The next stage of my painting process is looking at all those photographs I took when autumn colors were at their loveliest. As I have nearly 650 photographs to go through, it's a pretty extensive part of the process.

Not only do I look through all the images and choose the ones I like best, but I also crop photos to find new compositions, and adjust the lighting to approximate more nearly my memory (and imagination). I resize and save them, labeling them so that I can identify where I took the photo. The photo above, by the way, was taken on the way to my studio.

Thank heavens for digital photography! It allows me to take plenty of photos, giving me lots of images to work with in the paintings I'll be working on throughout the year.