White Hellebore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Hellebores are delicate flowers that bloom close to the ground in partial shade. They are one of our first flowers of the year.

This almost-all-white blossom was growing near our front gate. I cut it, and then Phyllis helped me mount it on black velvet using a pin.

I shot straight down, using my Zeiss macro lens, and combined four exposures from two to eight seconds (at f/22 and ISO 100) to capture the entire dynamic range in the petals.