Rose portrait in B&W - My feelings

This is my entry for #monomad challenge by @monochromes

For a few years I have had a dream: to be able to buy a decent camera and a macro lens and maybe even learn to take photographs. And above all also post-production.
At the moment I have never found the right time to make this expense, nor have I ever gotten a photoshop license.
So my photographs are all taken with an Oppo mobile phone and edited in photoshop express.
This summer I took several shots of flowers and insects, trying to simulate macro or close ups.

They were rainy and gloomy days in the mountains when I found a rose bush, some buds, and followed them as they grew.
I saw them flourish and then wither, feeling at the same time a sense of joy for life mixed with sadness for its fleetingness.

I edited the photo in the Photoshop Express app trying to use the most suitable filters and settings to try to do justice to their beauty and the emotions they conveyed to me.

And then ultimately, as William Cullen Bryant wrote:

Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculpted flower

So I know it's not a lot of shots, but they're the ones I loved the most and I wanted to share them with you.
I hope you like them as much as I liked trying to bring out the contrast of black and white, light and dark, from too few megapixels.

Much love