No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. [Edvard Munch]
This is a very emotional piece... there is so much uncertainty in this that each person that looks at it will get a different impression and come away from looking at it with a different idea and a different experiance. I really like the lighting and the manipulations that you did (although, I'm not quite sure what they were!). Thanks for sharing this with us.
My manipulations? I cropped it, resized it, played around with the brightness and contrast a bit until I decided the original was best, and planned on increasing the saturation only to find it better when it was dropped slightly. That about sums it up. :-)
Interesting & well composed desktop image. the rangy DOF really adds a lot to this photo. the ropey score certainly doesnt reflect the effort put into it. well done.