Parasols of Longwood Gardens

[Norm Dulak]

Nikon D7000 w/Nikkor 28-300mm lens @ 160mm
ISO 800; f/6.3, 1/320 sec; MM -0.33
PP: PS CS5; Camera Raw luminance NR; levels, and minor smart sharpen

Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania provides endless visual treats, usually in the form of beautiful flowers. But yesterday, Longwood added another element -- hundreds of white, pink and yellow parasols covered the conservatory's central atrium.

I looked for a point where there were minimal breaks in the field of color and finally settled on this collection of yellow parasols, which contained only three minor distracting breaks in which sky or ceiling elements were visible. I removed those by cloning in yellow pixels, to produce the undisrupted image you see here.

Norm

[John Storjohann]

Norm, this is a great pattern abstract; the black radial spokes drawing your eye in and out of the image...the diagonal formed by the hubs at the centers...the "glow" of the background parasols that are receiving more of the BG backlighting...this just has a lot of nice things happening. I do wish there had been just a bit more room at the bottom, beneath that last center hub, but that's a minor nit-pick....nicely done! :cheers:

[Julie Kenward]

I agree...you did exceptionally well at finding what fit into the composition and cutting it at just the right place. Love the way the sun appears to be lightening the top layer more than the lower layer of umbrellas...it's a beautiful abstract!

[Dennis Bishop]

Very nice. Just that happy yellow is enough, but there's a lot more to appreciate. Great composition. And it looks like you were very careful lining up your shot to get all the visible centers of the upper parasols in the same position relative to the edge of the closer lower one. Very effective job in getting rid of the non-parasol parts, too.

[Brendan Dozier]

This is really excellent, Norm, beautiful pattern abstract, nicely seen, captured, and processed. Well done! :cheers:

[Mitch Carucci]

This IS a visual treat!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Beautiful work Norm. Love the pattern you captured and the color is great!:S3:

[denise ippolito]

Norm, This is lovely, the pattern, colors and subject are all great!:S3:

[Cheryl Slechta]

Norm, I love the patterns and colors. Nicely done.:S3:

[Indranil Sircar]

Wonderful pattern, Norm. Love the defused light and you composed it just perfect.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks everyone! I've really enjoyed all of your comments.

Norm

[Ken Childs]

This is wonderful, Norm! Nicely spotted subject and you did a great job with the yellows which is not all that easy to do. :cheers:

[Anita Bower]

Wonderful image. Well composed. Fabulous color and shape repetition. The several shades of yellow are lovely as is the light. I think this would be a challenging image to capture well, and you did it.