[Zig]

Don kindly gave me permission to add an interpretation of the above image, the original of which is in the Showcase forum. here are the steps I took:
1. I was very taken with the natural composition of Don's image, also sensing a certain "biblical" flavour. The trio of subjects arrested at what I consider to be a decisive moment, as they say, reminded me of an Italian renaissance painting; the headscarf seemed to echo this...and I was struck by the implicit idea of the suspension of the male subject, reminded of the crucifixion but alos of the mediaeval "type" of l'homme pendu, the hanging man. Whether this was by extension or association, I guessed that the wooden logs had a symbolic allusion too, though maybe just within the scope of the image rather than objectively.
2. So struck was I by the degree of engagement I felt with Don's image, that I asked his permission to try my hand at pp-ing his image, on the understanding that I'd approach it with sympathy and respect: I'm sure I myself would think twice before letting someone loose on my work, so thankfully Don is more trusting than I!
....so here's what I did:
3. Don sent me a 800px copy, so I first uprezzed it and reframed it tightly around the subjects;
I knew that if I pushed the highlights I'd blow out the headscarf, so dodged in the faces as much as I could.
I used the blur tool to soften the background in an attempt to give a faux "wider aperture";
I then worked on the mids and shadows, burning in and trying to convey a dark, almost brooding intensity;
I downrezzed the image progressively down to around 800 px(I'd uprezzed in Genuine Fractals to around 2000 px), each time smart sharpening as another layer, then erasing all but the eyes and facial features: this way I could end up with an intensity of facial expression.
My next dilemma was that I found the image equally captivating in both colour and mono....so I decided on both!
4. The mono one was really helped by the following: remember I said that I dodged in some facial lightness? Well, one of the consequences of doing this is that one adds a brighter colour, which can of course ruin an image. However, in this case, I knew I wanted to keep the faces lighter(more "angelic", pure, etc;?), and the resulting red/pink tones just needed red filtration in the monochrome conversion process to effect this: bingo!
In the colour version below, I warmed it up with filters, building in more darks and softening the shadows to give things a sunny afternoon glow in an attempt to suggest a touch of sad romanticism and sense of implied "loss"...again reminded of the aging varnish of a Leonardo in terms of treatment; I worked in a kind of vignette that hopefully is subtle enough to cloak some extraneous background detail and allow the viewer to concentrate on theme and mood.

And here they are!
Am very grateful to Don for his permission and his trust in letting me loose!

[Don Schaeffer]

I really like your editing of this. Thanks.

[shuttertalk]

Nice work Zig and Don! It has a really nice, warm feel to it.

For those who were not across it, here is the original image.
http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewto...p?id=11155