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Thanks for the suggestions Karin.
By the way, a little digression here. What you said about taking one's own photographs as essentially being part of the whole creative process made me wonder whether any portrait painters are also working as artistic portrait photographers. I don't mean the typical studio photographs, but onsite, single source lighting, portraits -- say like the Yousuf Karsh type photographs.
My feeling is that artistic, onsite, portrait photography can be an art in itself as well as a great tool in the creation process of portrait paintings. In fact, honing both skills could complement each other very well -- being a painter, could help you take better photographs, that would serve as better references for paintings.
Of course, I feel that painting goes much further than photography because it could take several photographs, plus some live sittings, to create a painting and you can also break out of the confines of photography with painting. So it's a much deeper study of a personality. However, I'm just not sure whether also being a professional, artistic portrait photographer in any way detracts from marketing oneself as a portrait painter.
Will clients perceive you as less of a portrait painter if you also present yourself as a portrait photographer? All the sites I've looked at so far show the artist as strictly a painter (who may use photographs), or strictly as a portrait photographer. I wonder why this is so, because these are really two separate skills, that should complement rather than take away from one another.
Maybe Cynthia also has some input here.
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