Twenty Eleven – Problems with displaying recommende posts

I wonder what’s wrong I’m doing that I either get only photo with a post title on it (then it’s featured photo and sticky post together or I tried with just sticky post and some combinations with a photo in its position inside the post but the only thing I get is the initial part of the post, not necessarily showing a photo and after a few lines it’s Read More.
I would like a decent size photo with some control of how much of the article appears and possibly how the text and photo are positioned in the layout.
Unfortunately, there’s no tutorial about this theme that comprises all the important things…
By the way, how do you organise media in the gallery ? When the number of posts accumulates, it’s good to make some order (into folders?) But then aren’t the link paths lost after such an action?