Usually I don't like to talk about my images technically... this is an exception. The original was taken in the searing sun of midday at some f stop smaller than a gnat's eye. So I was dealing with almost monochrome contrast, and an image so sharp one could use it to shave. But I'd captured an expression which i knew that a director could never coax from an actress (which is the greatest contribution of candid street photography). So, how to eliminate all of the competitive business in the background and foreground (note that blur in the lower left... it is a perfectly focused rear of a boy's head)? Plus she wore a greenish metal clip in her hair, and a bow that was, again, both sharper and brighter than a laser.
And I wanted to do this one with as few seams showing as possible. I wanted the viewer to suspend disbelief. Okay... what to do?
"Ahah!" I says to myself, "Self, you can use the raindrips that you shot on the side of your car last year. The car was uniformly silver... so... remove the silver and leave the drops."
I thanked myself because I understood that the rainy-window illusion would allow viewer minds to accept my enhancements. Of course your technical grasp instantly reveals the impossibility of the DOF in this image, right? Tack sharp close foreground, blurred middle foreground. Sharp subject - then wonderful bokeh in the distance.
Your mind says, "Oh, of course. That's a cheap pane of glass through which Ted is shooting so that it is causing spherical mischief that is causing the selective pockets of wet-blur in the foreground (boy's head) and the foreground bow and hair clip... even her bangs (although they might possibly be motion blurred) while also explaining the lack of contrast throughout the image and gentle softnes upon her skin.
"Look!" your mind mutters. "This must be the effect of the window pane because it even allowed her locket to stay in focus while causing her dress, shoulder, and arm to become gradual wet smears. Yeah, the locket is just the detail that sells it... sure it's a tad distracting, but so is life and it assures you that this is a genuine capture."
So y'see... this does hang on a technical conceit... that it is all accomplished through some window, or perhaps as a reflection. And of course I wanted the rain flecks to suggest tears and gentle storm... so I created the darkness to allow the negative space to showcase the tear/drops and again sell the device even though I allowed few if any raindrops to hover over her face itself...
To come full circle... I'm pleased with the way that the technique was able to essentially make this dance of light and shadow work. And I reeeeely appreciate your concentration upon the poignancy of that girl's expression and feeling what I felt as I carefully created, "Time Heals Everything".
