Paintings are profoundly different from photographs. While capturing a scene of beauty in a moment in time may sound like the goals of both activities, and, even though a painter may use photographs as reference for a studio painting, the process and the results are powerfully different. Today with modern digital cameras and software, photographers can now edit, enhance color, change “heat”, and contrast in ways only painters could before. Yet, the camera can only work with the photons that go through the lens and then are reprocessed by the technology. When a human paints, the image enters the brain, which interacts with it in an emotional way, reinterprets it, and then has inaccurate conversation with the hand as it executes the painting. As the hand is working, the brain sees fortunate mistakes that it then elaborates and plays with. The shapes change. The shadows and color do too. Suddenly light splashes where a shadow once was. Human figures may now inhabit the landscape, doing activities that weren’t happening in the scene before. The figures bring their own emotions to the image that the brain decides would be fun. On top of all this, the way the paint moves and changes shape is like nothing a photograph could do. Then there is the paint’s texture! The texture adds another layer of complexity, especially when the painting is viewed in person. When I enter a room and there is both a painting and a photograph to view, I go first to the painting and linger and stare, then look at the photograph briefly, then go back to the painting, because I can see the mind of another human and share an emotion that transcends time and space.