Technical Notes:

I can't say what specific techniques I used on this image
any more than I can tell you how I compose sentences.
At best I might say that technical practices are learned
until they become second nature to us, so that we might
otherwise free our limited conscious thinking just to
concentrate on what we are out to achieve and where we
most want to guide the viewer's attention.

Martin titled this photograph "Contemplative." As such,
it seemed to me the place to guide the viewer's attention
is to the face of the child, and so all my technical
choices were mostly about keeping that foremost in mind.

The stain on the child's shirt struck me as a potential
visual distraction to what the goal of the image is all
about, and so it was removed. In like manner, certain
areas of the background ground were smoothed over tonally
so that once again they won't so much pose a potential
distraction to where the photographer might most want
to guide our attention.

Certain foliage in the background was lightened so that
the three elements of the child's face, hair and surrounding
background would tonally provide a better play of light
against dark and dark against light (here again, the objective
being to guide the viewer's attention to the face, rather than
at all having the potential distraction of why dark hair
seems to be visually bleeding into a dark background).

So I can't say the specific techniques I used because it
would perhaps be a lengthy list that I just don't consciously
keep track of. But what I do consciously keep track of is
what the communication objective is of the image, and then
make technical choices which hopefully might best guide
the viewer's eye in that direction.

-- CJ