A Shadow Of His Former Self. C&C Welcome

[chauncey]

About as non sequitur as it can be.

Was being philosophical by merely suggesting that the subject appeared to take those crosses as burdens rather than entertain the possibility that they may well be blessings in disguise.

[flashback]

Here is one final edit. I decided to maintain the original crop as I feel the people in the BG lend to the idea of isolation.

[Mike Buckley]

This last version works very well for me. Good choice to include the people in the background for the reason you mention. All of that area including the busy street scene helps emphasize the isolation of the subject.

One small touch that has a surprising amount of impact: this is the first image that includes all of the street sign indicating that it's okay for pedestrians to cross the street. The posture of that graphic is in such contrast to the posture of the subject that it adds important information that is hugely disproportionate to the small size of the sign.

If you ever get around to wanting to make yet another improvement, you seem to have darkened the sidewalk by using a paint brush. If I'm right about that, you left a bright halo around the subject's clothes and shadow. The way to eliminate that halo is to use the same brush but at a smaller size and with the image displayed at a much larger magnification.

Well done and well worth the trouble that you went through to improve the image to this point!

[flashback]

Thanks Mike. You helped me get there. As did everyone else who offered comments and suggestions, thanks to all.

[Mike Buckley]

Sorry, Jack, but I added a paragraph to my post after you posted your response. You might want to reread it for another idea to take the image to yet another level.

[flashback]

Mike, thanks yet again. I didn't notice the walk sign, or rather, noticed it but not its significance. Good eye.
I see what you mean about the halo, I'm working on that presently. Thanks.

[flashback]

That halo was a result of over sharpening, so I went back in, took a few steps back in the process and applied 'sharpen' instead of 'unsharp mask'.

[Mike Buckley]

Unfortunately, this last version loses the brightness of the subject. Overall, I prefer the next to last version.

[flashback]

I am going to call THIS one my penultimate edit (leaving me some wiggle room).