Working from a photo

This is the photographic image I used to create the painting on the post below. Nothing very inspirational but it does have strong shapes that aren't broken up into tiny pieces. In other words, it gives me solid masses in which to build a composition. Most of the detail is gone in the dark areas but in this case it was satisfactory and probably kept me from putting in a lot of detail that wasn't necessary.
Photographs are very limiting. The eye can see so very much more than the photo. I always study colors and values no matter where I go. It helps me when I have to deal with a photo like this where the colors and values have basically been reduced greatly from real life.