If you’re lucky enough to receive a gift of flowers – or know someone who has – the urge to photograph them is hard to resist. It’s an opportunity to try out some macro shots and capture a frame filled with colour.

The downside of this photographic urge is to create something that is engaging and avoids the twee and the slightly nauseating. Here are a few of my own efforts, thanks to an extravagant bouquet my mother received for her birthday and a thoroughly romantic gift (red roses) from my partner Dermot.

At least when the blooms have long withered and died, you have a permanent memory of them. Do you find the compulsion to capture your flowers impossible to resist?

Are there simply too many floral photographs?…