Almost there! Week 49, and the theme is "Balance." I interpreted to as a balance in nature. Hence, my theme is "Spring: Nature's balance." It's been somewhat of a long winter, but there's always that burst of sunlight in mid-March that represents the beautiful array of seasons that lie ahead for the remainder of the year. The Spring Solstice was just three days ago, and what beautiful sunshine NY experienced! With such warm temperatures, little seedlings couldn't help but drink up some of that vitamin D! And it's the sight of those tiny specks of greens in our backyards and sidewalk cracks that have seen smiles return to our faces because we know that a lovely Spring is about to take full bloom... and that my friends, is Mother Nature's way of balance. I couldn't put it better than Mr. Joseph Krutch who observed that, "The famous balance of nature is the most extraordinary of all cybernetic systems. Left to itself, it is always self-regulated."

         The overall edited shot is a bit dark, but this was deliberate. Since Spring has just begun, I wanted my shot to strike a balance between the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring. Hence, the vibrant greens are contrasted against the dark and coarse earth that has been barely lit by sunlight. Below is a composition of my editing process. Image #1 is the RAW file. The original shot was lacking in tone and vibrance. Thus, I ran it through Lightroom where I played around with the Tone Curve and temperature. The end result can be seen from Image #2. Thereafter, I edited the image further via Google+ Editor. I amped the vibrance, increased the structure and darkened the image a bit along the soil area. The final result is Image #3, which is also my submission to Fifty-two Frames.

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