waiting for his queue

What kind of enlarger are you using? The light on the subject is a little weak, the illumination favouring the background. Other than that, it is strong. Getting down to eye level often makes such images stronger, as the subject feels more at ease..

I think the light on the main subject which is the boy is excellent. The light is pretty good all round. Given that the actual print is likely to be better than the scan. I'd say your enlarger is OK.

It may be that the subject is apprehensive of his forthcoming performance in which case his expression is in keeping with the scene.

Good job this wasn't in the U.K. You'd probably be arrested and in jail by now given the "authorities" attitude to any photography involving kids or certain buildings or anything else soon if we carry on as we are.

I was not implying that the enlarger was not good. On the contrary.

I use a Durst Laborator 1200 enlarger. Usually, and is the case, I print with split filtration in the dichroic head, starting 45 yellow and 24 magenta that supose to be grade 2 in Ilford Multigrade paper.

Great portrait as usual!

Jose:

Split filtering does nothing that cannot be achieved with single filtering (except for dodging or burning in differently in the two exposures). That's a myth that needs to be exploded. The illumination of the boy's face looks weak, as I said before, and the negative may be underexposed (I cannot tell). In any event, the background looks fine, but the foreground looks kind of dark and weak. Is this a diffusion enlarger? I prefer condensers myself, as it gives better acutance in the print, due to the fact that condensers (since they give more contrast) emphasize adjacency effects present in the negative.

The main problem here, though, is apparently insufficient exposure. I would give this about 1 to 1-1/2 stops more exposure on the negative.

Ornello, thanks for your comments, perhaps I didn't express myself correctly when I say that I print with split filtration, what I mean is that I set 45 yellow and 24 magenta in the dichroic head at the same time in a single exposure, and if it's necessary to change the overall contrast I set another par of yellow and magenta filtering, in a single exposure. About the film exposure, could be posible that it is a little underexposed, but not that much, otherwise the overall contrast should be dull, and you can see that there is a clear separation between the stripes in the plastic bag at the right of the boy. I don't want to enter in a kind of zone system discution, but using the terminology, you have to take in account that the boy is not caucasian, so his skin tone is darker than a regular "zone VI", and that he lives in a very dry place that gives him his "matte" skin surface.

Jose:

I understand now about the print filtration. Thanks for clarifying that.

I still do think, however, that the boy is too dark, from looking at his eyes. The whites of the eyes are very dark, and this means that the whole area is too dark. If the exposure were sufficient, the whites of his eyes would be lighter (not pure white, of course, but lighter than what we see here).

This is a common problem with backlight. Sometimes you have to ignore the meter and use your own judgement. Based on what I can see, it looks like the bright matter behind and around him factored into the reading that the meter in the camera gave, which underexposed the boy. It's also possible that you just printed it too dark or scanned it too dark. In any event, he is too dark.

Thanks Ornello, I'll try to improve the print. I'll let you know of the results

Is this a diffusion enlarger or condenser model?