Aesthetic Interest in a Subject

Question:
Can you have aesthetic interest in a portrait painting just for its subject as in a photograph?

         I don't think that it is an impossibility to have an aesthetic interest in a portrait for its subject as Scruton says you do with a photograph. However, there is so much more to a portrait painting than just its subject which would make it hard to have aesthetic interest only in the subject. Take the subject out of the portrait painting and your aesthetic feeling may go away.  For example take Albrecht Durer's Self Portrait from the Northern Renaissance. There is an aerial view seen in the window which gives the painting a sense of depth. Although Durer is the main focus, exclude the window, take him out of the portrait and you just have him. The aerial view provides more interest in the photo beyond him being the subject. The detail of the curls in his hair and the planned placement of each fold of the clothing; you can't get that from taking a photograph of the subject. It’s so precise that the thought behind it was very much intentional.

Albrecht Durer Self Portrait 1498

Representing Personal Characteristics

Question: 
 Can personal characteristics be expressed in a photograph as they are in a painting? Why and why not?  
       A painter paints what they want you to see and how to see it. While, a photographer takes a picture of what they want you to see but they have some limitations when it comes to telling the viewer how to see the photograph. The painter can use various techniques such as line, texture, pattern, movement and color to portray the characteristics of a person, how they want you to see the person. This gives painters flexibility. They can add light and a fictional background if they choose to better reveal their intention to the viewer along with many other things, it is their own creation. With a photographer they have to use what they have, so they must wait for the lighting to say hit a certain spot on a person's face to reveal their intention of portraying youth. One must be in a certain background where it relates to their characteristics. The bias of the photographer does not easily come through as it does with the painter because the painter is not limited. However, the photographer can manipulate the initial photo. If that is done, the photographer becomes more of a painter in Scruton's eyes. I agree, because I think it takes away from the reality of the photograph and presenting what is there which seems like a primary purpose of photography. In general, most people will ponder the characteristics of the Mona Lisa (not just because the painting is well known, but any portrait painting. This is just a god example because many are familiar with it) but we wouldn't look twice at a photograph of a person. In a photograph, we don’t know the angle that the photographer purposely took to reveal their thoughts. In a painting, we know the brush stroke the painter purposely made to reveal their thoughts. 
       Overall, there can be two answers to the question hence the why and the why not depending on your view. Initially, I did not know what to think. So yes the photograph can possibly reveal personal characteristics by capturing someone in a certain way but no it can’t, especially the way a painting can because it does not go into depth and provide of a sense of how to see the picture or the intentions behind what characteristics are portrayed and how. The photograph may capture false characteristics while the painting can capture what lies beneath the surface of the person.