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The value of photography
Boy, how nice it is to see such passionate defense of the photo for reference! I agree with all of your comments!!
I, too, work exclusively from photos I take myself. At least 72 of them. Why the quantity? I am basically not only finding the "right" pose, but memorizing what I see from life. Yes, the photo changes things, but the pro will have the experience to know that and adjust the painting to make it look like it was done from life.
That said, I would not know HOW to do this unless I had painted from life at some time in my experience. It can be as simple as spending an afternoon doing a quick 16 x 20 self portrait in natural light. Just for practice.
I know the restrictions of working from life, I have them too. However, for the beginner, I do feel its important to spend at least SOME TIME doing SOMEONE from life.
(And BTW, I too get a tad bit annoyed when certain societies claim that working from life should be the ONLY way....)
Keep up the good work "photo reference friends"!
~Stanka
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