Mountains, flowers and DLS fun!

I didn't have a chance to rope someone into modeling for me, but I was dying to do the exercise. So I decided to make use of what I had-- a vase full of flowers.  I would really like to give this exercise another go sometime soon, using a person as my subject.

Silhouette. My least favorite of them all.  I don't think there's enough light in the background to give it the full effect I was expecting. 

 Back lit.

 Side lit.  I struggled with this one.  The goal was to obtain harsh shadows and bright highlights and shadows and highlights there were.  I really don't like the way it turned out though.  I find some of the flowers blown out in a way that doesn't appeal to my eye. 

 High-key. Is this even high-key?  I'm not too sure.  In my mind, high key equals evenly lit, no shadows but overall really bright, maybe even overexposed a slight bit.  Anyway, this is the picture I got for high-key.  I was shooting at the tail end of daylight so I had to turn on my kitchen light (hence the warmness from the tungsten lights).  I think there is a little extra light from the side, reflecting off the yellow flowers in the back, which takes away from the evenly lit image I was trying to achieve. 

Well, enough of the technical stuff (for now).  I managed to escape to the mountains for a couple days this past week and got a few good shots.  It was mighty cold, but so refreshing to escape the city and hear nothing but the wind rustling through the trees and the snow crunching beneath our shoes.