It had rained all day, so...

[Mike Buckley]

Setup
The background is black fabric. A medium continuous-light lamp is above and behind the subject. A small continuous-light lamp is above the subject in the front left area. One end of a small sheet of black foam core is resting on top of the umbrella and the other end is resting on top of the camera to eliminate flare. A white reflector on the right side brightens that side of the wood. The blue tones were added during post-processing.

[John 2]

As a how to, this is excellent. I also like this as an image in its own right. Different and interesting.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, a scene possibly seen from an upper window as a pedestrian passes under a street lamp.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to both of you!

[mugge]

Mike, the added blue tones worked well.
Cheers Ole

[bnnrcn]

Great shot Mike, I like everything in the image

[lovelife65]

Fantastic

[Mike Buckley]

Continued thanks to everyone!

I often mention the small size of my makeshift studio. To put that into perspective, this umbrella is large enough to be used comfortably by two people at the same time. So, it's larger than a standard umbrella. I had to be exceptionally careful while entering and exiting the makeshift studio for fear of disrupting the position of the umbrella while opening and closing the door. Once I was inside the room, I felt as if I was in a horror scene of a movie about a studio being devoured by an umbrella.

[Wavelength]

Creative minds never experience the dearth of subjects to photograph....
This is simply awesome and inspiring....

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, Nandakumar!

[Urbanflyer]

wonderful image!

[Astramael]

I love it.

The execution of contrast is stellar, deep inky blacks (due to the blue tinge, I adore inky blacks) and pinprick sharp highlights. It feels crisp, brisk, like the temperature on a blustery winters day. I like the leading lines radiating from the umbrella's center. It gives the eye something to do, and as you follow the lines outwards it leads your mind to create a story around what isn't there. So choosing a partial capture on the umbrella is great execution also. As always I appreciate your overview of the technical implementation, fascinating to read and understand spatially in my head.

Now, I could stop there and be utterly satisfied..., but in the interest of full disclosure I am not sure how I feel about the vivid splash of orange, and the black background. Certainly I find the existence of the bright color to be marvelous, it anchors the attention in the image masterfully. But I wonder about its use, its spread, its role in the story? At this point being unsure how I feel, I cannot usefully add more. I will ruminate on the subject to try and be more constructive.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Julian and Judith!

Julian: Special thanks for taking the time to express your thinking so clearly. It might interest you to know that the reason I added the blue color cast is because the image was lifeless displaying the umbrella's fabric as the neutral black that it is; the image screamed to me that the cool tones were needed in the fabric to complement the warm tones in the wood. You might have liked the image just as much if I had eliminated the wood even though the lines would have been going in fewer directions rather than all directions. As for the story, in an image like this I leave it up to the viewer to determine what the story is and, indeed, whether there is a story more than the display of a wet umbrella against a black background. For me, there is only that story but if some people want to use their imagination to come up with other stories, that works for me.