Photos as inspiration for composition and abstraction

Photos and found images help generate design and composition ideas.

Jan 03, 2025

NY’s Day pano of yours truly at Mason Mills Park, Decatur GA. Photo taken by Noel Olken.

Hello friends, I hope the beginning of this new year finds you well and inspired to create. I’ve been digging through the many photos I’ve taken over the past years, and finding a lot of imagery that inspires me. Plus cleaning out the mountains of images too!

Read on for my latest article.

Find me online:

Visit my art website: KrisCahillArt.com.
Fine art prints of my work: Fine Art America shop
My Psychic Substack is here.

Happy New Year to you! May the coming year bring you lots of joy, love, and art making, in all the best ways.

Love, Kris

Inspiration from the photos in my phone

Using a photograph as a starting point for a painting or composition.

Birthday shot at LACMA Los Angeles, many years ago, in an exhibit that included a Rain Room. Photo by Noel Olken.

Every time I look through old photos, I come away inspired and overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of images - do I need 10 shots of that birthday cake already?? But also very inspired by how many fun and sometimes accidental moments are really truly great images to work from.

It is now January 2, 2025 as I write this, ie; the beginning of a new year, and I am cleaning up my files. I’ve been at it for a few weeks now, updating, deleting, saving, moving to the archives, etc.

I saved photos for almost last, because there are so many, and they are not easily organized, at least not for me. I get to spend time processing the memories, the gratitude for having these images, the emotions that come up around them, and the perspective I have that I may not have had before.

Pano at Mason Mills Park, featuring Noel Olken. 2024

I am currently obsessed with some of the many pano shots I’ve taken, because they are so abstract. When I do a pano shot with my husband Noel, we play with it. He was the one who started this - he’ll move around behind me as I take the pano shot, and show up in several places in the same shot. This entertains the two of us endlessly, and creates amazing images.

Panos on the beach are always awesome, any beach. I know some of these images will inspire new paintings soon. That sky, the light, water, and shapes.

Noel and Janice at the beach, Wilmington NC, January 2023

Noel at the beach, Lincoln City OR, July 2021

Mike and Noel, Lake Michigan in Gary IN, May 2024

I like photographing nature, color, shapes, and abstract imagery I find along the way. I don’t do much to alter the photo - the red trees below photographed this way. The blue morning sky, incredible red trees, and overall light and energy really call to me, and remind me of the early morning walks we took in our Portland neighborhood.

Morning walk in Portland OR, Autumn 2021. That color!

Irvington Park, Portland OR, Autumn 2021

Sometimes it’s about the fun and playful images that show up everywhere.

I love this one, taken in November 2018, on a trip to Paris and Amsterdam. It was my birthday, I was thrilled to be in Paris again, and Amsterdam for the first time. We went to as many museums as we could.