It was a week and a half after Valentine’s Day and most of the dozen Valentine’s Day roses in a vase on the dining room table were done and had been thrown away, but a few were still looking good. I asked Sami to lay on the floor, handed her a long stemmed rose, and I carefully arranged her hair. Then I stood up and pulled the best looking petals off of more roses and randomly dropped them on her. Some didn’t land quite right so I re-positioned a couple of them.

I put one studio light to the upper left, very close to floor level, and another one as the fill light to lower right, also very close to floor level.

When I looked at the final image I decided to remove all of the color except for the rose petals and Sami’s lips. I explain how in this article. Yes, her lipstick color really was this bold.

This is one of my all time favorite portraits.

Link

Selective Color Removal, How to Paint on a Layer with a Color Mask