As a general rule, I feel like roses are very over done in photography. Yes, they are really beautiful flowers in their own right, and all those folded, textured petals do make wonderful subjects, especially if you want to study light and shadow. The many, many colors that they come in also makes them fascinating, so I really do understand why people love to take pictures of them. Since they are so frequently photographed, though, I have pretty much stayed away from them until Monday, when I went to the Cedar Lake Botanical Garden. It just didn’t seem right to go there and take images of all the other flowers and just ignore the fabulous roses. They had quite a few varieties and numerous colors and color combinations, so to not photograph them would have made the day incomplete. But I did want to do something different with my first ever rose photo, so I tried to do something artistic. I chose a pink rose and removed all but the pinkest pinks. Then I added a pink light flare and ended up with the image above. It’s still definitely a rose, but hopefully it’s somewhat different from other rose images you’ve seen. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this rose shot and about rose shots in general.