Yellow rose.

"As it came out of the box" ... :) - comments welcome.

Mariellen Romer, your love for creation shines through. You deserve a 7/7 just for capturing so much peace and beauty. Thanks for sharing. Happy New Year.

Very beautiful. Happy New Year :)

the color and texture are wonderful

If I were to rate this, I would not give much for originality...so many pictures of roses looking down in the center. But I find this one quite captivating. I think it is because it has a fascinating irregularity. The edges of the petals are scalloped in a way I'm not accustomed to and the central spiral is broken in a special way. This is like a four-leafed clover, a special beauty discovered among flowers that are pretty but otherwise undistinguished.

one of the wonderful dividends I have enjoyed since photographing flowers has been the joy of looking for the special flower among the dozens on display. Usually I cannot turn these into powerful images that impress, but I receive much satisfaction simply working on the images, enjoying the flowers, and sometimes the end result is pleasing to a few other people. Perhaps the same could be said for most other subjects that come before our lenses.

I have to confess that my one fear about posting this picture of a rose head-on, was that it was a big-time cliche. I started to look at rose shots - I buy cards with them on, for pete's sake! - and decided that ok yes it was cliche but mine held its own. It has a special meaning for me, in that it was the picture that started me down thinking about photography in a more serious way. Too many people oohed and ahhed over it, and it remains the pic with the highest hits even in my photo.net portfolio which may not mean anything significant but I still think its interesting. So I'm glad you like it. I like it too, especially as it's had no photoshop or any alterations at all.