A Night at the Circus - Negative Space

This is the first painting I've done with all those photos I took at the photos I took Sunday. I really wanted to play with the negative space created by the contrast in the photos, and with blending washes of colour for the background. It's taking the little grey watercolour I did a few weeks ago to an extreme. 

This was a bit of an experiment to see how much detail I need to convey the information I want, and to trial a style I really like. I think it would be excellent in backgrounds and atmospheric scenes, especially if I ever get to do a graphic novel, like I keep talking about. Something very Film Noir. I sort of imagine this as the first step, with detail added to the foreground and any important figures.

I put the finished painting at the top because I'm curious to get some feedback before you see the photo it's from. Can you tell what the picture is of? I can easily tell, but a friend of mine was completely confused. Of course, he doesn't have an artistic bone in his body, but as his eyesight is as good as anyone else's, I'd like a second opinion. 

Here's how it all came together. The photo, cropped to size:

I used to 'threshold' edit in Photoshop to try and determine exactly how much detail I could put in/get rid of and still have a recognizable figure (you can tell me if I picked the right balance):

Here's the sketch, taking out the extra detail and person. I just wanted a simple image:

Followed by masking fluid based on the Photoshop image. My idea was that I could then play with the colours however I wanted, and the girl would still be recognizable. Any detail I added would be a bonus:

And here it is before I took the masking fluid off. I love that bit: