You could try and:
1. Prepare the photo. It should be posterized in Photoshop. Very flat midtones and some contrasty areas in highlights and shadows.
2. Embed it in Illustrator and Object > Object Mosaic.
3. Ungroup the result. Maybe even out the midtones by selecting them with the magic wand tool and then apply the same fill to all of them.
4. Select single columns of objects and group them each
5. Move those columns slightly as in your template.