Dreaming in black & white portrait of a young woman - Nikon D80 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2 ISO 200 1/200thSome photos you edit immediately, some you get to years later, others you put aside because you know eventually you will want to edit them. The latter is the case for the above photograph. It was made two months ago, but it was not in the right mind frame to edit it until apparently today. Occasionally I would look at it in my Random folder in Aperture 3 and think, do something with this photo now? No, not yet, but keep it here, I will do something someday.
I wanted the image to have a dream-like feel to it, so the choice to process it in black & white was natural. I chose a push process filter in Nik Silver Efex Pro and to that applied a yellow filter to really soften the whites and leave just a few shadows for contrast. I used the glamor glow filter in Nik Color Efex Pro to also soften the image.
In composing the shot I did not want the young woman's face to be seen directly, as that would lead the viewer away from vague dreaming and more to wondering who she was. The profile view shows a little, but leaves a lot a mystery, especially what might she be looking at or what is the expression on her face?