The Gazania, commonly known as the African Daisy, is a highly heliotropic flower. This means that it opens in direct sunshine, and closes back up in the evening (or on very cloudy days).

I cut this Gazania blossom at high noon on a sunny day, and brought it inside. The idea was to photograph it on a black velvet background while it was still open.

I placed the flower in a small, blue glass vase, and wrapped the ensemble with my black velvet background cloth, allowing a little reflected blue light to come through the background. To make the image, I used my Leica MP11 with a focusing rail and Novoflex bellows mounted on my tripod. The lens I used was my Leica APO-Telyt 135mm f/3.4, stopped all the way down to f/22. The exposure duration was 30 seconds.

I’ve been asked whether I used LAB color and my LAB action to create the colors in this image. The answer (and it somewhat surprises me) is, No: this is pretty much straight out of the camera, and LAB color was not involved!