Miketh, I feareth I was not cleareth. You take exceptionally beautiful reference photos, indoors and out, including this one. I'm sure you won't turn the shadow side into mush; I just think it's harder to manage the shadow side on an outdoor subject using photographic reference than it is to manage the shadow side on an indoor subject using photographic reference. I'm not exactly sure why this is so. Part of it may have to do with how hard it is to control outdoor light. Part of it is that I think it's often harder to find the planes of the face in outdoor light. And part of it may have to do with my theory that you have to be really good-looking (or young) to look your best in outdoor light.
Many painters of outdoor subjects aren't who I'd classify as "portrait" painters, since they seem to me to be more "outdoor figurative genre" painters. They do incredibly beautiful work but I'm not sure you could identify the individual from a crowd of similar people.
I have an indoor portrait on one easel and an outdoor portrait on another easel in my studio at the moment, and so this issue has been on my mind a lot recently.
I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence.
Linda
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