"I follow this painter guy from Ireland; he paints simply, he simplifies photos and I copy what he paints. In one of his books he talks about simplifying photographs, he says to take out things you don't want and add bits in if you want.
"I try doing that but it doesn't look like the scene. For instance if I add things in like a mountain in the distance and bushes it won't look like the scene but it looks good. How do I make it look my paintings look like the scene? Does it matter if it doesn't really look like the scene?" -- Ash.
It entirely depends on you how much a painting looks like "reality". Some people want a painting to be photorealistic, to be exactly like the actual scene. Other people apply artistic license and change it to suit the painting. How much you change is a matter of personal choice.
If you're not going to call the painting "XYZ Waterfall" but just "Waterfall" then it doesn't need to look like it at all, you can use the photo just as a starting point. Remember, you're the artist, it's your painting, you're not a slave to nature and don't have to copy it. Rather you interpret and adapt it through your artistic lens (brain).
If you do decide to call the painting "XYZ Waterfall" rather than "Inspired by XYZ Waterfall", think about whether it'd matter to you if someone complained it didn't look like the falls? The British painter JMW Turner has some spectacular scenes of Venice, but he altered reality, putting together bits of the city you can't see in real life without moving down a canal, or making buildings taller than they really are. It's an artist's prerogative to portray the world as you see it or wish to see it; you don't have to be a human camera or photocopier.
Take a look at this example of adapting a photo for a painting, where the artist has adapted the scene to make a stronger composition and painting. Also read my article Altering a Reference Photo for a Painting. You may find it useful to deliberately blur the photo in a photo-editing program, to reduce the amount of detail you can see in it.
