I take pictures of blooms on both the first and second days, and I've noticed that I always like the 2nd day pictures much better. The petals seem to relax much more and give that flowing ruffled look that I like so much. And I always have trouble with dark colored blooms too. I've discovered that if I can put a brighter light source somewhere behind the bloom it will look more like the real color of the bloom. But sometimes I just can't get that light source, so the bloom is lighter in the picture. That first picture of NANCY'S LACE that JoAnn posted was taken before I discovered the "light source" trick, and three of the four pictures in the second group of NANCY'S LACE were taken after I figured it out.
