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I hate to disagree with Steven, especially since he may not check emails while in Taipei, but, I feel compelled to differ.
The beautiful "other-worldiness" from this realistic portrait depends on the bright light flooding the subject from behind, over the shoulder. When painting a landscape in bright sunlight, we must eliminate the lower values from the palette, as there is so much reflected light bouncing around, that even the darkest shadows rarely dip below the fourth value.
Here, not only do we have an extraordinarily bright light source, but it is clearly behind the subject which would further reduce cast shadows. I think the careful resistance to modeling here was brave and appropriate.
Perhaps slight temperature changes would define the planes of the head without inventing shadow or dipping deeper into the value scale. However, like bright, foggy-day conditions in the landscape, the few areas of flatness seems to be a natural by-product of the setting.
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