Scented Bath

I've found browsing the blips of others to be great inspiration for stuff to try out, and having camera info for the shots is a great boon. Anyway, last night, I ran a bath but was feeling a bit too tired, so I left the water in and this morning was greeted by a bright green pool. It was too tempting to pass up, so snipped some flowers from the garden (went for pinks mostly to contrast), arranged them and fired away.

I was hoping for something a bit surreal, or a bit Ophelia backgroundy. Not sure if I got that, but that was the inspiration. That, and a great bath pic I saw on here yesterday that made me curious if I could get similar levels of detail (as it turns out, nope, I can't).

Learned a lot from this, including....
* Tweaking the saturation, temperature, etc., in iPhoto really does help. It made the green more lurid, the pink brighter, and the water on the plant leaves a bit sharper. I tried not to overdo it on the tweaks, tho I may go back later and tweak again, pushing it to the extremes this time, to learn what is possible with the software I'm using. I'm sticking with iPhoto's edit suite for now, but plan to move on to Aperture soonish. And then me and Photoshop are gonna get down...
* Flowers move in water, no matter how carefully you place them. This is both fun and annoying. At the same time. So, a little bit zen, then.
* Using a step ladder for my full bath shots was a good effort, but I just couldn't get the level of detail I wanted for this. So, I took a bunch of closer shots from ground level and found one of them was the best to use.
* When in doubt about whether you've got a decent shot, take 10-20 more. It will pay off later, as you cry over your "decent shot" being crap only to click through a few of the 'safety shots' and find a decentish one in there.
* My camera was hand held for this. Some kind of (very secure!) tripod/mount rigging system to go over the bath might have resulted in a better pic. I don't have one, and it was a spur of the moment shoot anyway, but it's worth bearing in mind for when/if I do have access to such gadgets and the time to use them.
* I didn't get the highly saturating green I was looking for in-camera, nor did I get the shadows of the flowers on the bath's bottom. Damn. Any tips for how to get more shadow here? Or for a better water effect? I just used natural light - one of those small speckly bathroom windows.
* Overall, I'm just not getting quite the level of detail and sharpness in images like this that I want, compared to other shots (okay, these other shots are mainly by pro photographers with better cameras than mine) - any ideas what in my technique/gear could be changed or improved to get more detail? Thanks.
* I am seriously considering getting a flashgun soon, and maybe also a new lens and/or filters (was thinking a polarizing filter, and either a 50mm lens for close ups and general pics, or a 18-70 or 18-200mm lens for photographing bands in town....still reading lots and still very undecided, but would appreciate your thoughts if any of these things could have improved my pic, (or given me more detail shooting the whole bath) so I can learn more about what they can do for me if I go for them). I'm skint tho, so we'd be talking £100-200 lenses, not £1000 lenses here.

Right, I'm off to the shops for some food, and then it's back to do some music work! Thanks for browsing, thanks for reading, and thanks for any comments. It's all appreciated.

Update:
Okay, so it was annoying me that I couldn't get better shadows, so I went back and took a few more. The bath foam remnants were completely gone, and I couldn't better this shot, but I tried a directional reading lamp propped on the step ladder (heh, being too lazy to clear up from this has its perks...) and pointing in the same direction as the daylight). That worked a little bit, it was just the shots weren't as good overall. Don't think it affected the colour saturation tho, so that's a Learn for future - keep my collection of lamps on hand!

And then I took some danger shots - literally at water level, without any protection for my camera, yikes! I popped my lil finger out from below the camera to warn me about how close the water was, but I ended up resting my entire right forearm on the water surface for the last few. Had to be sure my camera was pointing completely straight! Luckily, when finished, my camera was bone dry (tho the strap is now hanging up as it was a little bit damp). Again, don't think I captured anything visually better than this one, but a fun and hairbrained little test anyway...