Paintings of photos look like paintings of photos because they're crippled by the artefacts of the source photo such as unnatural perspective (which is why the "normal" 50mm lens is a thing), inaccurate colours and clipped highlights due to the limited dynamic range of even pro-level DSLRs.
Professional painters take years to hone their craft and learn the rules of composition that make a painting look good. E.g., one of my favourite painters is the watercolour virtuoso Joseph Zbukvic. Here's a video where he quickly paints an impressionistic Melbourne street scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81w9PBZOmZ8. Because he's not slavishly copying the photo he's free to rearrange the composition and add elements to make it more pleasing. He makes it look easy but that's because he's one of the best.
Buying original paintings from professional artists doesn't have to be that expensive. This past weekend I attended a group art show opening in Melbourne and prices ranged from $450 to $2200 for some very nice original oil & watercolour paintings. If you can afford to live in the Bay area or most other large cities in the developed world, you can afford to occasionally pay that much for a painting.
(Most of the stuff churned out by the "contemporary art" scene can be safely ignored. At the very high end contemporary art isn't art as much as it is an unregulated private currency for the very rich to launder and move around their wealth. Most contemporary art disappears without a trace.)