Working from a photograph

There is so much in the way of subject matter to paint up there in Maine. On the day at John's, several classmates painted a ship that was being worked on near John's. I wanted to paint it too, but I wanted to paint water that day, so I took lots of pictures intending to paint the ship when I returned home.
Once I had the photos, I chose the one to work from that had the most interesting composition.
The thing I've noticed is that the contrast is very strong in my photos. The dark buildings are all one value and I keep having to hold the photo up to the light to see the details within the dark shapes. I know this would look totally different if I were sitting right there. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. You want to be able to see the lights and darks, which is harder to do in person. But you also want to be able to see subltle colors inside the shapes to use in your color balancing act.
Oh my, I have so much to learn.
I spoke with a friend a church who told me she is taking a photography class and she said you can control that and she kindly sent me a copy of notes about aperture settings and I need to learn how to use my manual setting on my camera and get photos that bring up the colors in the shadows.
It is a perfect fall day and the hawks are announcing that school has started. Some one is showing the house this afternoon.