Rose with repost

Very impressive, Rob ! I really like the isolation of the flower and leaves on the black bg - and the textures in each case seem to come out even more strongly than they otherwise might. Definitely not odd at all for me !!

Rob:
Beautiful portrait shot. Love the mood with black bg. The details and textures on the petals are just sublime. I like the inclusion of the leaves overall but just not sure of the ones in the RLC though; a tighter crop excluding the lower leaves may work just as well.

Rob, this is fabulous. I like the way the "moment" of light helped separate the flower from BG, and the details in the petals are stunning, so it stands well on it's own.

Certainly not odd for me. I think the leaves show us where the stem is - very similar to how, in wildlife photos, when vegetation hides the feet, the legs show us where the feet should be (and we need to leave room).... here the leaves "show" us the stem. If you could open a little more detail in the upper leaves it would show even more, but I don't think it's needed.

I do agree with Gary though, about the LLC - sliding it on my monitor - cropping the bottom so there is about the same amount of black at the bottom as the top would leave only a small bit of that lower leaf to clone or content-aware out....

Closing word would have to be WOW!!

Thanks for the comments. Here is a recropped version, eliminating the bottom leaves.

Rob
The repost looks stronger

The re-post is very well handled Rob. The light is well shown.
Bob