Peruvian painter/illustrator Gabriel Alayza on an usual day of work

I did this portrait attempt tweaking curves in photoshop. What do you think

about the choice of tonality? Would a different choice be better? Also,

please do comment on composition.

Hello Flavio

Overall it's a pleasing environmental portrait. I think the choice of monochrome is a good one. You've captured how focused he is on his work. I like the dark tones as it focuses you attention on the subject. As for suggestions. The first is the light coloured pen on the right border draws you attention away from the subject and I would clone it out. The brightest spot in the photo is where his hand rests on the screen. This is natural but that isn't where the viewers attention should wander to. The eye is naturally drawn to the brightest part of the image. I would tone it down and raise the brightness on the face. I would like to see a bit more detail around his head again to help draw the eye to the focal point which for me is his face and how intensely focused he is on his work. I find the shadow areas on the arms and neck to be rather noisy and different from the grain in the rest on the image and would reduce/smooth it out. I did some dodging on the face and sharpened around the eye, reduced the noise, cloned out the pen, toned down the highlight on the hand, brightened his head a bit. I did a quick rough edit to show what I mean and posted it here. 

 Maybe a bit over the top but shows the direction I was trying to go.

Regards

Greg

Overall, I think it works well.  The most light should be on the face, IMO, so you should try to reduce the brightness on the hand (although I expect the hand to be bright because it is closer to the light source; maybe the hand and face should simply be the same brightness) and eliminate the pen on the right edge.