[rdtsc]

The painter themselves can take the photo. Photos can help if the subject or the scene is hard to be around long enough to paint. Say, an artist painting impressionistic city streets in the rain. It’s hard to stay in the rain and paint, but they can take a photo and paint at home, while recalling the feeling of being at the scene - the cold, the wetness, the sound of the splashing water, cars driving by, etc.

[cntainer]

yep, I already addressed this in another comment, that's photorealism, and the artist always takes the picture so painting it is just the last step in the overall creative process.

my point was that it feels weird for me to call it art if you didn't take the photo and your just doing the last, arguably less creative, step.

Not that it doesn't take a great deal of effort and skill to achieve it, it just feels somehow "lesser".

[rdtsc]

> Not that it doesn't take a great deal of effort and skill to achieve it, it just feels somehow "lesser".

Yeah, it does in a certain way. Say, I take a picture then send it so someone to make a "painting" of it. I does feel a bit "lesser".

Of course, depending on the trend in art, it may be that's the whole point of the piece -- to highlight that everything is just a copy of a copy and so on. Basically, it could be a deliberate part of the process like say https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbel...