The daffodil is also a narcissus, and is a member of the Amaryllis family. The flower is a harbinger of spring. As a narcissus, the flower speaks to self-absorption: in classical mythology the beautiful youth Narcissus spurned the nymph Echo, who died of a broken heart. Narcissus then saw his own reflection in a pond, leaned over to possess himself, drowned—and became the flower.

To make this image, I photographed the daffodils using a lightbox for the background. Leaning over my tripod, I did not fall into the lightbox and drown!

After shooting a bracketed sequence, I used my special post-production layering techniques to combine the sequence of photos. Finally, I added the flowers to a scanned paper background to add an archaic look—almost like an old-fashioned botanical painting—and to complete the image.

Interested in learning this set of photographic and processing techniques? There are spaces available in the February 2014 session of my weekend-long Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop. Click here for more information and registration.