These yellow orchids represent friendship only. 
I found these in someone’s front yard while going for a walk. I tried taking a picture from a high angle to just show grass in the background, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as a flower-level shot.
There is a house behind the flowers, but it’s blurred out because I used a large aperture (F2.8). I changed the white balance to be less warm, added brightness, and sharpened on the computer, along with the standard darkening of the corners (vignetting).
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/250, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:57:41-04, 20091016-205741rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
Richard X. Thripp at 2009-11-08T00:48:10.Thanks Alison! Try taking pictures from different angles and IGNORE the background, even if it’s ugly. Just look at the flowers or whatever your subject is. You’ll notice it looks better or more interesting from certain angles… Then work with the background by moving the subject if possible.
On a DSLR you can blur the background out with a large aperture (low F-stop #), but on a point-and-shoot the background will always be clear, unfortunately.
Remember your editing! Go pirate Photoshop and start adding contrast through the curves tool, dodging and burning, etc.
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