(see the full-size close-up below)

Close-up images of flowers are always interesting because they magnify nature’s beauty in all the radiant variations of colors. Long before computers and digital photography I experimented with ways to make these images look as though they were painted. To do this I sandwiched the original transparency with a clear one on the back of which had been smeared petroleum jelly. By viewing this combination in a slide duplicator I used a fine brush to stroke in painterly strokes in the petroleum jelly. Then I photographed the effect of light refracting through these slides. Little more was done recently than to scan this slide to high resolution and enter it into my computer. This print mirrors the results.

To me this photo looks like a sharp but slightly altered mirror reflection of the rose in water, hence the title. Printing the large 13x19-inch image on textured watercolor paper adds to its beauty.

This is a close-up image from the full-size print, showing the detail involved