Jack, just one little extra comment, and I want you to take this the right way, please don't think I am being overly critical....
You started your posting of this type of picture as an attempt to aspite to the quality of the work of Imogen Cunningham. No I'd say straight away that I aspire to the work of a lot of professionals and often fail to get anywhere even close but that's why they sell pictures for thousands and I sell mine for a few quid! But may I recommend you go back to Imogen Cunningham's work and look at it with a critical eye. Look at exactly what she has achieved and try and work out what the differences are between her photos and simply black and white floral photos.
She gets tremendous definition into her work, not just because of good focusing but because of excellent control of lighting. This is something that takes a huge amount of skill as she of course can only see the flowers in colour but she has to know what the result will look like in mono. Only experience can tell you that and it takes years to develop it to her level and that of other greats.
Be really hard on yourself, compare yours to hers and ask yourself what the differences are. Then ask yourself what you need to do to convert those differences into work of a similar calibre. In many cases the answers will not be immediately obvious. Some you will discover by trial and error, others you will have to read about and put what others have learnt into practice.
In short, how do you go from a basic photo to a piece of fine art? It isn't easy, if it was we'd all be doing it and making a fortune! I would love to achieve what Ansel Adams achieved but I am light years away from him. It won't stop me trying, reading, experimenting and trying some more and I believe the time and effort invested will make it worth while. I might never be the next Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson or whoever but that isn't my aim. I don't want to be the 2nd Adams, I'd prefer to be the first Barron
Keep going and trying, keep leaning and maybe one day we'll have young Pixalo members saying 'What do you think of this guys? I was trying to achieve something after the great Jack Mitchell
Cheers,
Rob