The other day I set out to create a mandala using flower petals on my light box. The mandala uses petals that I plucked from alstroemeria, with the center formed by a Gaillardia—itself a complete mandala in miniature.

The original series I photographed on the light box is shown below, on white. To create the version on black (above) I inverted the L-channel in LAB color.

Since one always hurts flowers in the process of this creation, and I hate, hate, hate to hurt flowers—or anything or anyone else—I felt the least I could do was photograph “the remains of the day”: the petals in an ornate dragon-themed bowl (below).

By the way, I don’t promise I haven’t lost count (how is that for a double negative?), but I do think this is literally the one hundred and first mandala I have created (depending on whether you count the glassware or just the flowers)!