This is the same yellow rose from this shot. I was experimenting with lighting...again. I like the way this one turned out. The rose was dried which accounts for the interesting textures and shading. I know it's dark but it was the mood that seemed to fit best. This rose is quite tiny and could easily fit on a quarter with room to spare.

*It was quite late when I posted this and I wanted to do a little description of the technique I used to make the deep shadows and light areas in this photo. It was really quite simple. I used a light stand, my SB-800 speedlight in remote mode, a white umbrella, tripod and my sons music stand for a table so I could get in close with everything. What I did was to fire the flash through the umbrella rather than reflecting it into and out of the umbrella. The flash was placed close and to the right almost at a right angle to the camera so the light came from the right and slightly above and fired across the frame. I shot it at different settings in terms of the flash, everything from TTL to AA, including different power levels on manual. I believe this was one shot at 1/4 power on manual at 24mm zoom (on the flash). I deliberately underexposed the shot to get the dramatic effect I wanted and then re-adjusted exposure in Camera RAW.

In post processing I adjusted curves, in layers, changing opacity here and there to get the look I liked. I then converted it to black and white using gradient map in layers, then I tweaked the levels in layers. I dodged and burned where needed. This is probably the most post processing I've ever done on any photo.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

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