White Rose

Re: White Rose
If I may make a suggestion, I find the best time to take a pic like this is in the early morning or late evening, in other words when the sun casts a golden glow onto your subject. The colour of a flower also determines the best time of day. As the rose is yellow I find the above times work best. Also try to isolate the rose from any other distractions which draw the eye away from the main subject. Using a fairly wide aperture setting such as f4 or f5.6 will place any background matter out of focus too, the eye is then drawn to your main subject. You have underexposed by -1/1 stop, was this on purpose?. All the best.

Re: White Rose
Its funny you saying that - the picture was taken at around 8am, but yes - earlier morning light would have been much softer. The roses are actually white, the yellow hue is being cast by the sunlight coming through hessian curtains and I have used an old 50mm portrait lens, setting the aperture at f1.8. I did under-expose the shot slightly as the rose seemed to wash out. I meant to correct and lift the image afterwards but actually quite liked the tones. I think the other stem of flowers (not sure what they are) are too close to the main subject bloom so even with the large apertue it hasn't softened enough to your point. The missus will be pleased - will have to buy her more flowers to try it again.