One of my favorite exercises is to draw a referance from a different angle. Also drawing from life becomes much easier if you get over the shyness of actually doing it. Obviously you don't want to hyper-analyze a total stranger, but isolating something you like e.g. their face or clothing and putting detail into that can…
One important thing drawing from life develops is your ability to gesture out things quickly, whereas if you were to just copy from a photo you can just sit there forever.
Amounts of color, value, shadows are always lost in photos to a certain degree. Plus life drawing usually consists of quicker sketches as well as longer ones so you train to see forms quicker and not the details.
It's nice to look at a real life reference but I don't think you have to do that for EVERYTHING. Why travel half way across the city to study a Fire Hydrant when there are 1000's of fire hydrant pics online? As long as your drawing displays the fundamentals, most wont care or tell if you drew an object from a photo…
While that parts true in that you don't need to see a real life counterpart for everything/reference is fine, I will say that if you apply to a traditional art school you'll find professors can indeed tell a difference in whether or not a student or applicant drew an object from a photo. They usually would rather see…
My collage (I went to AAU) offered free drawing workshops, like, every day. Some nude, some cloth. And the teachers/professors were presented in all workshops as well to help you if you need. When I was there I would join these workshops at least 3 times a week. Some weeks with not a whole lot of assignment I went every…
Adding onto the 'you have to make decisions about lighting and composition', by making those choices, you develop an ability to observe, as well as style and the ability to understand other people's styles on a more fundamental level. An interesting exercise is to make a photo of a given object, then draw a picture of the…