Most of the photographs in my paintings were made in the same short window: the twenty minutes or so after the sun clears the hills. The light is low and warm, the water is usually flat, and the shadows are long enough to give a shoreline its shape.
I arrive in the dark, set up, and wait. Waiting is most of the work. A lake changes every few seconds at that hour, and the frame I want often lasts less than a minute. The photograph of Still Water took four mornings. On three of them the mist sat too thick, or the wind came up, and I packed the camera away without a single exposure.
Midday light flattens everything, so I rarely shoot after breakfast. Fog and overcast skies are different. They soften the edges and turn a landscape into a few calm shapes, which is exactly what a painting needs around it. Low Field was made on a grey afternoon for that reason.
Back in the studio I choose a print by how much quiet it leaves for the paint. A busy photograph fights the color. A still one lets it in.