Water Lily looking at a Flying Saucer

[Douglas Bolt]

Canon 7D, Sigma 150, f5.6, 1/200, ISO 200, tripod, fill flash.
Original image is here http://dbolt.smugmug.com/Photography/Longwood-Gardens-with-Roman/13475029_FHTMc#981254061_vS7bn

PP: Cropped to square, Polar Coordinates filter, a 90 CW rotation, some cloning to even out the black, sharpened flower, Soft Light blend (~50%).

I was pleased with how this one came out. I'm looking through my flower pics for more images with dark backgrounds.

[denise ippolito]

Douglas, Very cool looking flower. I wonder if this image even needs the bit of leaf at the top. I might evict it and crop tighter if it were mine. I love the curvature of the petals.:)

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Doug, I really like the flower in the image and also wonder about the leaf. I do like the allusion to a crescent moon and a star (at least that's what I see :cool:). I would be tempted to remove the leaf and put a flying insect or something more round in its place. I like what you are doing in these images with the PC filter. One word of caution - natural dark backgrounds can be addicting! ;)

[Cheryl Slechta]

Doug, I like the black bg (I love the flowers on your website:)) It has a lovely oriental feel to me. but I think I'd like it more without the leaf in the urc.

[Douglas Bolt]

Thanks, All.
I'm not clear what you mean by the leaf. There is no leaf in the original. The green "UFO" is another flower bud. The brown object towards the bottom is the flower stalk. I'm assuming you are referring to the "UFO". I Patched it out and uploaded the results. It does look cleaner, but I think the flower now needs a bit of CW rotation, but didn't do it.

Thanks again for your thoughts. I guess the title would need changing to something like Looking for a Missing UFO.