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I was about to quote and comment on the same words of Allan. In fact, learning the fundamentals of painting a good picture completely changed the way I take photographs, even if I don't intend to use them for references. If what I see in the viewfinder wouldn't make a good painting, I usually don't press the shutter button anymore. It's really jazzed up my photo albums a lot.
But another aside -- not a continuation, because as I said, I've contributed what I have on the subject, but I realize now from intervening comments in another thread that I've been misunderstood here, and a clarification is needed.
For critique purposes, by all means post the reference if you'd like. It's always useful to some degree. As I said before, it's essentially the "model" to which we compare your execution. To reiterate, posting the photo is most useful if you want to know if your painting accurately depicts the information in the photograph.
The catch is that, even if it does, it still may not be a good picture, in terms of design, composition, or other elements. That assessment can be made from the painting alone. However, it still may be useful to see the reference (the "model"), simply because it could be the case that the vision, as it has been put, in your photograph actually exceeds what is revealed in the painting. In that sense, seeing the photo could concededly provide some basis for discussing elements other than mere accuracy.
And it can go the other way. A reference photo could, yes, "prove" that the painting was accurate, and yet prove too much, if the result is, say, a poor value design in the photo itself. You must be willing to hear that, too. (If in doubt, consider pre-posting in the reference photo critique thread.)
If nothing else comes of this thread, it may be an appreciation of the fact that you are the artist, and you are in control of your artistic expression, and you, not a photograph, are responsible for what you put on the canvas (and for what you put on your palette, and so on).
An analogous pitfall that is heard by every teacher of fiction writing is that, well, since it "really happened!" (or, since it's in the photo), it is therefore a believable and good story. That is as false in visual as in written art. Another is the protest that it took 10 years of selfless toil to write a manuscript for a novel, and therefore it must be worthy and publishable (that is, "good.") No it musn't.
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