Personally, the black background on some shots isn't my coop 'o tay, but I got the calender anyway, because it's ours and that is a nice feeling. The blooms themselves were beautifully photographed; it was just the blackness that is a bit heavy for me, like someone's portrait being just their head hanging in space, with no neck or shoulders. I'm hoping next year's will be a bit more naturalistic. But that's completely subjective, and I had no idea there had been any controversy around it. There's no need for it; people can take turns; this year, black velvet, next year bouquets/vases, the year after that on the hoof/in situ, or a mixture, like this year's. I try to take a mixture of shots. Some are what I hope is pretty, some are what I hope is informative. If both can be achieved at once, great. I'm in complete agreement with you re: photoshop.

My old camera was a Nikon too.
Apologies if ‘encutting’ was misleading, though I’m gratified that it looked legit. I mess around with words for fun, but is ‘encutting’ pushing the envelope? ‘Endear’; en and adjective/noun. ‘Envisage’; en and noun. ‘Enrobe’; also en + noun. Maybe it could be viable, if it could survive its birth- if we were to deploy it with extreme prejudice against all resistance. Just the kind of fun for mavericks, fearless iconoclasts, and china shop bulls.

I’m very new to roses myself. I find the classifications fascinating, mostly for purposes of finding out general attributes of the various classes for purposes of making sensible rose choices. Or at least trying to :). That’s not so much botanical as practical. The Vintage Roses website has/had lots of good info on habit, foliage etc, things we often overlook in our zeal to have or see the most perfect flowers. The ultimate in botanical basis will be when all the genetics get analysed and provenance ascertained. That will REALLY be interesting.

Regarding clubs, in my teens long ago I read in some novel the phrase ‘I’m not a joiner’. Words edged in light, as Frank Herbert would say. And etched in memory. Long track record as a withdrawer. In fact, Tassie looks from here like a very nice place to withdraw to :) I’m trying to stick with my rose club and benefit and be useful, placing my trust in good people to be welcoming and warm and bear my imperfections. But there’s a time to stay put and a time to light out, and the individual is the rightful arbiter when it comes to that decision, generally. Still, nice to have open options to connect with people who share the common appreciation. Maybe sometime if you join again, troubled times might be long past.

About the whites, any camera that gives you control over shutter speed and/or aperture is one you can use to prevent over or underexposure, if you have a fair idea how the light meter in the camera behaves. Basically, the camera wants everything to be grey, the goldilocks tone [not too dark, not too light], so when it sees white, it tries to underexpose. That means we need to increase the amount of light the object gets, against the advice of the camera/light meter. It feels a bit scary, decreasing the shutter speed or opening up the aperture for a pale object, but that’s the logic. Here’s a little article on that. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm. This article makes mention of new metering technologies that might have been what you’ve heard of that can supposedly automagically manage bright subjects. But maybe you know all this!

I really don’t think I’m one who can tell you anything new about capturing beautiful images of roses. You have that well in hand. Your photos are truly lovely. What we both need now are decent manual DSLRs.