It’s not easy, I know, to get a great flower shot. Beauty is tricky. The tendency is to make the flower do all the work. I mean, it’s beautiful. Isn’t that enough? 

It is if you are standing there looking at it, interacting with it, allowing the rich intoxication of its scent and beauty swallow you whole. It is then, but when it’s just a picture, you have to make up for the fact that the viewer is not there.

Get down to the essentials. Set the flower off by minimizing the background. Make the background out of focus by shooting with the lens wide open. On your smartphone, use the portrait setting. Use a dark background with a lighter flower. Use a light flower background with a dark flower. Get close. Get close by using a macro lens or by cropping. Get close.

Once you are in there, take your time. Slide around in that world until you come upon something that makes you feel the same way you felt when you saw the whole flower.  
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I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.
--Georgia O’Keeffe
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Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California 2003