Before this, I had experimented with different types of landscape photography, but not much on flowers.  I figured it was time for me to give it a try and work with a subject, background and lights to make the shot.  I used a simple black poster board for the background, which I later made solid black in post-processing.  For lighting, I used a single Canon 430 EX II speedlite, however I didn’t want it mounted to the top of my camera, so I held it and used 2-4 second exposures and manually tripped the flash for each exposure.  I manually set the speedlite power, the distance, and angle until I got a picture I liked of the amaryllis.  The results turned out better than I expected and I have a new appreciation for those who spend time photographing in a studio.

On a side note, I will start posting galleries of some of the places I have been mid-week over the next several weeks.