What to do with this photo?

[Louisa911]

I did a foundation photography workshop for my art foundation course the other week, get sent out to take some snaps using a very old, very basic Cosina Film SLR, and then had to develop them ourselves in the darkroom. With photography being completely new to me, none of them came out particularly brilliant, the one below was one of the worse ones regarding contrast and depth etc. but I quite like the actual image, scanned it in as you can see.

What can be done on the computer (i have gimp, but not photoshop) to improve this image, if anything? It would be nice to bring it to life a little more somehow.

[CivicMan]

[Simpo Two]

Isn't the point of doing it the old way *not* to use computers, but to rely on skill at the time of shooting and then later in the darkroom, dodging and burning etc?

[Louisa911]

CivicMan said:

Thanks a lot, thats sorted the tones out nicely. I'll have a go at touching that up a bit

[Louisa911]

Simpo Two said:

Isn't the point of doing it the old way *not* to use computers, but to rely on skill at the time of shooting and then later in the darkroom, dodging and burning etc?

Probably yes, but as I said, this was a basic workshop to learn about aperture etc, and this was literally the 4th or 5th shot I've ever taken with a film camera, let alone a fully manual one. And a darkroom crammed full with students all trying to do the same thing. So "skill" doesnt really come into the equation, haha

Workshop is over now, this photo was taken for my own benefit rather than submitting it as work, so any editting doesnt really matter.