I like the second. Looks good in BW and in sepia with appealing lighting, processing and implied story.
Looks like you have already had fun on the first.
A bit of a throwback to 50's sci-fi. Just saw Ed Wood with Johnny Depp.
Interesting to hear the backstory and see the starting image.
My association to sci-fi had to do with post-nuclear explosion look, but also to seeing the distant island as a stalking dinosaur!
Scott
Being more analytical than artistic doesn't mean I don't react emotionally, I just try afterwards it figure out what caused the reaction.... Things like how immediately I was attracted to the focal point in the shot, how long I initially dwelled on it, what distracted me off of it, and whether or not I returned back to it for a second look.
Here we have slender well proportioned female figure dressed in black leather. Hmmm... what's not to like about that? The fact she is on a lighter toned worn path framed with an arrow head shaped clump of foliage created the the bushes framing her add additional interest.
What I found myself distracted by was the darker gap above the ^ shape of the framing foliage at the end of the path. Conventional wisdom might argue for negative framing space there, but in this case the triangle ^ forms the frame and the gap pulls my eye up and out the top past it. The white border on the image as posted did that also.
So my first crop was on the top to put the apex of the triangle at the top of the frame. When I did that it looked unbalanced with too much foreground. Trying various crops I found the rock in the foreground to be a nice framing element. As with the gap on the top any gap around that rock would tend to draw attention to it because it contrasts with its surroundings. Putting it at the edge is a way I turn a potential distraction into a framing element for the focal point. The crop on the sides was based in the shape of the contrasting dark plant to on the left. It's similarity in tone and proximity to the focal point of the women make it a potential distraction pulling attention off the focal point so I cropped it in a way that it's line on top angled in towards the focal point and would blend into the black mat I added.
I also bumped the contrast a bit more than the original with Levels, except in the white hat which I darkened slightly.
