Landscape Contest! Looking for Photo References to Paint! 12 Steem to Give!

Steemians! You guys are good at taking photographs, and I want to paint them! If you've been keeping up with my blogs, you know I've been trying to get better at landscapes and the best way to do that is practice! I do love painting en plein air, but even more so I love painting from photographs and enjoy the challenge of trying to recreate that vibrancy of the natural light spilling over the land using color and impressionism.

Emerald Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park | oil on 8x10 canvas | 2017

So let's see them! I've already painted a few with permissions of beautiful landscape photos I found searching the photography tag and distributed some Steem for their willingness, but I'd like to paint a few more. I'll give 4 Steem to each of the three Steemians with the best photos that I'd most like to paint from. They must be taken by you and by entering the contest you're giving me permission to paint it :)

Hint: I love dramatic lighting! The challenge of painting light is my favorite so I bet I'll be leaning toward photos that have high contrast or unusual lighting. I also love a story so feel free to tell me about when the photo was taken.

These are the three that I've been dawdling on the last week or so. They're 5"x7" acrylic studies on canvas and probably about 2-4 hours in each. Thank you @brentssanders, @applehoang, and @daveks for letting me use your photos! I already feel a little more capable.

Original photo by @brentssanders at 7 Rila Lakes in Bulgaria.

I was in awe of the blues in the shadows, but after Brent told me "...the camera didn't even really get the red glare coming off those rocks, which was what really impressed me!" I was excited to try to capture not only the shadows but to pump up the light with red!

I also made another new friend, @applehoang, after finding her page through her wonderful post about her trip to Ha Giang, Vietnam. Her photos in particular of Ma Pi Leng Pass are magical. This one in particular just looked so unreal.

The most difficult of the three for me (and I knew it would be), the haziness and the otherworldly result of the camera angle were tough but I managed to pull some fun colors from it. Definitely don't think I did this one justice, but learning! Wish I had more time to work on it. I keep having to remind myself these are only studies.

And lastly here is the photo I used from @daveks who is always posting amazing photographs in Canada. This is his photo of Mount Rundle: "one of the most magnificent mountains in all of the Canadian Rockies. Elevation is 2,948m (9,672ft)."

I remembered to take some progress shots for this one :)

Thanks again for letting me use your photos to help progress my skill. I appreciate it!!

So, pick your favorite landscape photo you've taken and post it in the comments to enter! (Feel free to post multiple photos, just please keep them in the same thread!) I'll be painting the winning three photos and distributing 4 Steem to each of the photographers. I'll be accepting entries until Thursday, January 5th. I can't wait to see them!

Thanks for looking!

PS more landscapes here: www.christiesnelson.com