Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
A Ceiling of Colour
In Punta Cana, rows of rainbow umbrellas hung overhead, photographed from underneath against the clouds.
Most of my photographs are of places that were there long before anyone arrived. This one is of something people made just to make you look up.
The frame is filled with umbrellas. Dozens of them, open and suspended overhead in rows, each one striped in the full spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, violet, and back to red. They hang at slightly different heights and angles, tilted this way and that, so the pattern repeats without ever quite lining up. The ones nearest the camera are large and fill the top corners; the ones farther away get smaller and closer together toward the bottom of the frame.
Thin cables and metal frames run between them, holding them up. On the right side of the frame, a building edges in: a pale wall with yellow trim, a balcony with decorative ironwork, and a strip of fabric printed with green palm leaves.
Behind the umbrellas, the sky. It's a mix of white cloud and patches of pale blue, bright and soft. That neutral background is what makes the colours of the umbrellas sing. Against a deep blue sky, they'd compete. Against white cloud, they glow, lit from behind and from above, the light coming through the fabric.
Looking up is the whole idea. From underneath, the umbrellas become a canopy, almost a ceiling, and the frame becomes an abstract pattern of colour and shape. You lose the sense of up and down. I composed it so that the umbrellas fill the frame from edge to edge, with no ground and no people, just the colour and the sky between.
I like how playful it is. In a portfolio full of mountains, waterfalls and coastlines, this is a reminder that the story in the terrain isn't always natural terrain. Sometimes it's a street or a courtyard someone has decided to fill with colour.
From the bag
Sony A7R III · Sony FE 20-70mm F4 G · 20mm · 1/640s · f/4 · ISO 100
At 20mm, the widest end of the 20-70mm, I could fit the whole canopy into the frame and exaggerate the sense of depth, with the nearest umbrellas looming large in the corners. f/4 at 20mm keeps everything in focus, from the nearest umbrella to the farthest. Bright overcast light gave 1/640s at ISO 100, plenty fast for handholding while looking straight up. Exposing for the bright sky kept the white cloud from blowing out and let the umbrellas' colours stay rich.