Challenge: center of a nearly unfolding flower

[Jerry van Dijk]

I had the opposite experience that Alfred had: nothing but rain and gloomy weather here, which limited my options to the plants in the house. This is a very close closeup (diagonal is about 3mm) of one of the flowers of my climbing Ficus (don't know the species), which had it's flowers about to burst open. I hope the shadows show enough on your monitors. My laptop LCD tends to emphasize very light shadows.

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, tripod, 52 mm (320 mm eq.), brandless macro closeup lens, ISO-100, F/8, 1/80 sec, EC 0, pattern metering, aperture priority, RAW.
RAW processing in Silkypix, PP in Corel Photopaint, NR in Neatimage. Converted to monochrome. High key contrast setting. Minor tweaks on levels and sharpness. Full frame.

[Fabs Forns]

I like the idea very much, but I think a bit more contrast will giver more definition to the spiral. Sorry to hear you had bad weather. It's been super hot here, not good either.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Jerry ... would trade weather :) Like the composition and subtle density changes !! All about feel and this has it !!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jerry,
Love the comp!!! I do have a calibrated monitor but some of the whites appear a bit hot....especially the larger V. I think this has a great mood/feel to it.....would love to see a bit more tweaking as this has super potential!

[Thomas Herou]

I love the rain!Much deeper and fuller colors on the plants.
I like the spiral-like overlays and the soft tone.

[Anita Bower]

I like this a lot! Good composition. A challenging subject. I like the spiral, soft lines, definition by subtle shadows.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Jerry, Lovely composition and softness. Just enough shadow detail. I would just tone down the large V that Roman mentioned.

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Really close! Like the composition and softness.

[Julie Kenward]

I totally agree with the others - get that one area under control and this is a wonderful and delicate image! I can see where Fabs would want more contrast - it could certainly go that way with a little burning and dodging or a curves adjustment - but I do like it as is!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi all, thanks for commenting! Reg. the whites: my histogram shows no clipping (I adjusted exposure based on the histogram). Maybe those whites look hot because there are no details showing. These flowers are very smooth and the closeup lens I used tends to smooth along the edges.
Thomas, I totally agree with you about those wonderful colors after some rain. But it just kept pouring and pouring this weekend and my camera performs poorly under low light conditions.
Fabs, I've tried more contrast, but felt too much of the delicacy was lost.