Dear friends, here's a shot for You to suggest how it can be improved. The scene was very interesting imho as the combiantion of all the following was great!: she was HURRYING being late, but at the same time she waqs READING a funny book, so she was LAUGHING at what was in the book. Thank You for Your advice in advance, with kindest regards, -Anthony Pontigary.

There are a lot of things I'm not sure of because you didn't tell us any technical stuff, like what camera you used, film?, or what kind of metering you did....automatic? or something else. First of all it's obvious the sun was very bright and it looks to me like the camera used the wall behind the woman to base the exposure....as a result her face is dark and most of the image is under-exposed. A histogram reading in photoshop shows that there is no pure black and no pure white in your image either.

I played around with levels moving the control arrows to make blacks black and whites white....then adjusted midtones after the white and black were set....

and final image........just cropped a bit more off the top too....

and together.....

Nice mini tutorial Michelle.

Yes a nice mini tut there Mitch, I always go first thing to the levels menu after scanning just to make sure I have my black and whites correct, its a good starting point.:0)

Nice to see you here, Anthony. This looks like another addition to your series; taken alone it is not as powerful as in a sequence. Michelle did a wonderful before/after; I can't improve upon it. If you have the choice, it is often more flattering to photograph people on an overcast day. I'm not sure how much this was a "set up." You could possible have used a fill flash to lessen the deep shadows. Again, a very nice addition to your documentary of this lady.

Anthony, I would clean up the dust spots and other blemishes in Photoshop. The first thing I noticed when viewing this image is that glaring white blob next to her left hip.

Hmmm...I agree with Anthony. While some of the blotches look to be scratches, some look like trash on the street. I'd remove it so that nothing distracts from the main subject (unless it enhances it somehow). Michelle is also right on with the adjustments. Without that adjustment, looks flat. For myself, I'd probably have, preferrably, taken the photo slightly tilted and barring that, I'd tilt it a bit in PS (what I've done here). Dunno...just like it better that way. This photo should give you an idea of what I mean. I had to create some foreground and background detail since rotating it left big blank spots. Ignore any mis-matches. -=>Donald