I wish I had actively tried to take this shot so that I could use something like this in the future. However, this shot (as it came out) was a complete and total accident. I used the onboard flash to light this little dried out flower -- in between there was some very sparse vegetation. Previous and subsequent photos looked much more like I was expecting... good, but not nearly as striking as this one.

In any case, anyone have any idea as to what may have caused this very dramatic lighting? Did some foliage come into some sort of cosmic alignment and create this "snoot-like" lighting effect? Ideas? (BTW - the photo other than the border and re-sizing is straight from the camera)