I lit a passion flower (passiflora) from the rear and left, so that the light reflected off the flower onto the neck of a glass bottle with a rather tall neck. I used a telephoto macro lens (200mm) to shoot the passiflora through the neck of the glass bottle. My idea was to focus on the refraction of the flower projected onto the glass rather than the flower itself. I used a moderate aperture (f/10) for some depth-of-field—enough to make the refraction of the flower in the glass seem to be in focus, but not enough for the actual flower in the background to seem sharp.

What makes this image interesting is the inversion of normal visual expectations. In other words, the contrast between the “straight” flower in the background—which is normal and ordinary, but not in focus—and the distorted flower in the glass—which is contorted and extraordinary, but in focus—is unusual. We normally expect to see our “straight” things crisp and in focus, and our weird, dream-like things out-of-focus and, well, dream-like.