Flowers with a Twist

I like taking photos of flowers (there I said it). Where I live there are an abundance of flowers and I found taking photos of flowers I have picked is a good way to pass a rainy day. Photographing flowers inside also means no worries about wind to blur your photos due to the flower moving. The flower above was shot with available light in my room. The dark background was achieved by putting some black fabric behind the flower and out of the sunlight coming in through the windows. If the light falling on the background is 3-stops less than the light falling on the subject you will get a black background. Note: try this with someone standing in a doorway where light falls on them but the light in the doorway is darker (instant black background). I used my 100-400 lens for this photo (no macro lens used). In photoshop, I ran an action called 'Midnight Black" which gave the photo a look I liked. You can download for free (along with a lot of other free actions) at www.atncentral.com/downloads.