The Tulip finally bloomed

It was so dark and dramatic that I shot it against black. I don't normally shoot flowers (I do horse events) .. but had to try a shot of this one.

Donalyn: This is a lovely photo and I like the use of the dark background. But are you sure you don't want to selectively lighten it up a bit?

I saw you have image editing on, so I hope you don't mind that I tweaked it a bit. I used the Tone Curve in Lightroom to selectively lighten certain parts of the pedals. I also added a little fill light and increased the vibrance a tad. Just a thought. It's a subtle change but here's the result:

Hi Randy, Thanks for the edit.. which makes it a pretty purple tulip. It's nice, I like it .. but the real tulip was even darker than my edit. Really.. it was almost black. If I'd had more time to mess with it, I would have re-darkened it after I saw how it posted lighter than I'd intended.

I don't know if they call this a 'black tulip', but that's what my name for it would be. I like black on black with just the highlights showing (the glow on the left and light on the right and top.. and almost did it that way. .. but it was just a tad too dark so that's when I lightened it (and it turned purple).

Aw well.. it's good to see it a variety of ways. I'll be shooting 150 horses tomorrow.. so maybe I can play with different versions later next week. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I tend to like the simplicity of it.