I think my point of view on the use of photography in the making of drawings and paintings is pretty clear. It's a tool that can in some cases help in the preparation of a work of art, but that it is common for artists to become too reliant on them and this gives their paintings a certain flat and unappealing quality. That's not to say that any use of photographs is necessarily going to result in that effect, but it is something that artists should keep in mind and avoid relying too much on them for the wrong things.
Brian,
It all comes down to intelligence. For me, paintings are made in the brain through reason and research. The eye is yet another tool. So paintings done with photographs only look bad if the artist isn't understanding what he or she is painting. Being naive to something, like mixing colors or the structure of the body, is often evinced in any work of art regardless of the methods used.
