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Teresa . . . For the last seven years or so, I have painted free for parents portraits of their children killed in the current war. My point is that I have no choice but working from photos. My experience has taught me that, by and large, photos are terrible source material, but sometimes that's all you have from which to work.
Photos are notorious for "value clumping." In other words, the camera reaches out, grabs the scene, and then tries to reproduce it. Sadly, it tends to lump values, especial the lights and darks. Human eyes can refocus in split seconds so that when we look into a scene, we can selectively focus into the lights, middles and darks. Cameras can't do this.
In general, you will have to lighten the darks, and darken the lights to come close to what your eyes would see if your subject were sitting for you.
I believe you will have trouble if you blindly follow your photo because it is giving you a lot of overblown lights and lumped darks, and often, the middle values are also skewed. Also, photos are seductive in that they tempt us to paint all that detail . . . information you would likely overlook if your were painting from life, a situation where you would select and paint only the information you needed to make your painting a painting and not an oil reproduction of a photo.
If you bring the pants down in value just enough to make them look like pants, and at the same time, account for "light fall-off," you'll improve your work.
Skip the hairy leg. If you're not careful, you will produce several portraits in one . . . the head, the hairy leg, bright pants, grout . . . well, you see what I mean.
Your job is to present a handsome young man to his family and friends, not a series of mini portraits of random parts and pieces. Use you judgement, especially when working from photo.
Finally, all of the above is my opinion, fortified with some good advice from other artists and some good art web sites.
Hope this helps.
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