This is a shot of a hellebore blossom in a bud vase—or, as I like to think, escaping from the bud vase. The drops of water on the bud look almost like eyes, and the stem could be a tail.

I placed the bud vase on a light box, and used a light tent to create diffuse lighting around this still life. The photo was somewhat overexposed to enhance the high-key look.

In post-processing I duplicated the image, did a monochromatic conversion, copied the black & white version over the original, and used a gradient blend to desaturate the right side of the image.

Briefly noted: A wonderful profile of my work on Daniel Fealko’s PhotoFidelity blog.