We have a few experts on portraiture here. I am definitely not one of them. However, I think a main issue here is basic: relative light and dark.
you presumably want the viewer's eyes to be drawn to the face, particularly the eyes. But the face is in shadow, while much of the surrounding areas are bright. The luminosity of the whites of the eyes is about 30. The luminosity of the straw on the hat goes up to about 75, and the white sweater goes up to about 80. That's where the eye goes.
You can correct this somewhat with postprocessing. I'll paste a very quick and dirty edit that's just dodging and burning. But a better solution is lighting. There are many ways to do this to create different effects, but one way or the other, you need lighting that illuminates interesting features on the face.
![First attempt at Portraiture](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-7dghTJF/0/b5bf1a31/X3/i-7dghTJF-X3.jpg)