Flower on the Milky Way

I saw this one as I was rummaging around Worth1000 today, visually not too sure if i love or hate it, but that's not the point, must have been very hard to capture, that for me makes it a great shot.

I agree that this is a really cool shot. However, there is a general lack of definition in the milk that takes it down a few notches. Is that non fat or low fat? If it is I would suggest using whole milk or maybe even whipping cream or maybe even paint to get a less translucent look and get some harder shadows and definition. Just some thoughts.

Thanks for the comments guys :) Los, I used full milk but watered it down with water as I did not have enough, next time, I will buy some more milk rather than scrimp on the job ;) Here is some more shots [1] from the same shoot. I choose the image above as the milk splash gave me the impression that it was an extension of the flower. [1] http://kevd.smugmug.com/gallery/841786

i have seen this type shot many times but the flower adds a lot..

So how much time did it take you? How many flowers? How many shots?

Great shot Kev! Just curious – were you able to reuse the flower or were all the shots with new flowers?

Thanks for all the comments. I took this image in my back garden in bright sunlight, I needed a lot of light for the quick shutter speed, I tried in the house using a spot light, but it was giving me grainy images. My setup consisted of a washing bowl filled with 3 litres of full milk, I added some water to get to the top of the bowl, I now wish I had went up the shop for more milk, the watery milk is a bit translucent. I had four flower heads, I left some stem on the bottom for me to spin them, yes, once they had fallen in the milk, I picked them out and twisted the stem between my finger and thumb, this allowed centrifugal force to get the milk of the petals, so I could use it again ;) I set my tripod up, attached my cable release, them it was down to dropping the flowers from about fifteen inches and trying to press the shutter release at the time of impact. I did play about with different heights until I was happy. After a few test shots for camera settings, it was a lot of repeat shots trying to get the timing correct. Los, I think I must have taken about 100 shots, not that many really.