I like the work done here, but was this done with a digital camera, because you'll likely want to use a lower ISO setting. The grain found in this picture looks like you were using a 400 speed black-and-white film camera, where in a digital work you should have set 1-2 speeds below maximum and used a tripod with a longer exposure to eliminate the archiving.
I'm not a photographer type of person but wouldnt it look better if more if not all of the flower was sharpened?
It was with a digital camera, and firstly it was a dark room and this was already on a very high aperture (either f2 or 1.8). Secondly, seeing as the depth of field is incredibly shallow, a mass of blur in the background (especially without bokeh or anything interesting) would fuck up the composition, and making the background flower slightly more grainy alleviates the problem for me. Lastly I'm an avid fan of film photography, with a few film cameras, so I personally prefer a more grainy photo (such as you said either 400 or 800 ISO b/w film), especially for still life photography, which is the reason I didn't reach for my tripod and just set the shutter speed to something slower. Shallow depth of field makes it sexier for me, and if more of it was in focus, the background wouldn't look as blurry (and would attract too much attention).
