How to handle this condition?

[gardener]

This is a Calla Lily... almost pure white and a texture as soft as silk. And it's pretty translucent to boot. Problem: If you shoot it in the light, the white bloom blows out badly. If you shoot it in the dark, relatively speaking of course, it just turns into a white cone. The lure of a Calla bloom are its seductive twists and turns and deep, well like structure but if there is little to no definition, that beauty is lost in a one dimensional picture. How does one define the edges and curvature of this type of subject?
This was shot in natural light, ISO 250, f/8, -1/3 stop exposure, 24-105 lens on a M IIn, handheld. This is the crop version at 4x6...
Suggestions are appreciated.. Thanks,
Steve W

[engstrom]

Steve, a well positioned off camera flash would be my best suggestion to get some texture and detail in the Lily. Maybe high and to the side. Maybe try backlighting it with flash to show the translucence.

But, you could also try some post processing. I used some shadow/highligh, curves, and local contrast enhancement. It's still not great but I think it shows a little more detail.

[DJ.]

That looks pretty good to me, John. It's hard to recover and still show the translucency without losing detail the other way. I gave it a try but I think mine is the example of going to far.

[akimartymar]

One thing you can do on something like this if you have a tripod is to take two exposures and blend them together. If you do it well you will have good detail in the whites and darks and no one will ever know it was 2 separate photos.

[janetg]

i haven't tried white callas...but you may want to put some filtered sunlight on them - similar to this - and see what you get.

[gardener]

Thanks for the ideas... I'll try your different methods and see if I can make it better. This morning while getting ready for work, had the bright idea of shining a light down inside so grabbed the tiny maglight I keep in my camera case and tried it. Seemed to enhance the translucence quite a bit so when I get back home this evening, I may set up the tripod and try that too...
Thanks again,
Steve