Relic of autumn

As a sign of the mild winter so far, our spirea japonica 'Shirobana' still has one head of flowers, and this head of unopened flower buds. It has been unaffected by all the wind and rain.

I took the picture partly as an experiment in macro photography. The whole spray of flowers is just 15mm across. My compact camera lens is stopped down for best depth of field, the shutter at its fastest to stop movement, and the camera flash used with a home-made diffuser. The idea came from here.

The effect isn't quite what I expected - slightly creepy rather than beautiful. Is it the small scale, or the dead flowers in the background?

For a more natural picture, see the opened flowers in daylight.