Holly Leaf with a Difference

I picked up this dried-up holly leaf "skeleton" yesterday whilst out walking, with a view to photographing it today for my blip. It was already slightly broken but I don't think that matters.

First I suspended it over a plain blue background and used diffuse daylight coming in through a window to take the photos (a focus stack allowed it all to be in focus). It looked quite nice but then I thought B&W might suit it better so I converted it in Photoshop. Initially the blue came out grey of course, but simply lowering the blue channel to zero produced this nice dark black background.

I love the idea that nature can produce such wonderful patterns!

(Best viewed large.)

(PS added 18th April - take a look at my picture for tomorrow [18th] as well, they go together!)