Ant . . . I've been painting posthumous portraits for several years, so I have the same set of problems you mention. Over the years, I've learned that cameras, film, digital equipment does what I call "value clumping." I heard that term from Chris Sapper on this forum quite some time ago. Thus, it puts the responsibility on you to interpret things . . . is it really that dark in there . . . are those lights really that "blown out?" Generally, you'll improve your work if you flip those things a little bit . . . lighten some of those darks, and darken some of thoss lights. For example the darkening value separating the jaw from the neck is often much too dark in a photo, and often, the highlight areas are valueless white blotches. All that being said, in the end it is pretty much up to you to make sense out of what are sometimes rather poor photos resources. In my case, I paint young men and women killed in the war, so many of my photo resources are those typical little grab and shoot photos taken while he/she was home on leave. In many cases, I find that all I can do is use the photo as a guide. Sorry I can't be more specific.
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