Nice work. I think everyone needs to find things in their world that move them, to photograph, and the way light plays and shines on things seems to be something that moves you. And as a result, you make some great art.
I'd like to see more too....
What kind of camera are you using? Two things you might play with... I'm not 100% sure if they will make things better or worse, but for these sorts of glaring light conditions, you probably need a hood on your lens, if you don't have one. This is cheap, and it will eliminate the light that is glaring from things other than your main focus (where, for what you seem to be going after, you want the bright light). Also, a polarizing filter, which will reduce / eliminate the glare, might be fun to play with, since as you rotate it, you can selectively get rid of glare from some sources and not others. Also cheap.
Also, for the flower, if you have something like photoshop, this kind of picture will benefit a lot from unsharpen mask -- it will really make the pistil pop out from the flower more, which is hard with such a monochromatic flower. It also might look a little better if you boost the red in the highlight areas, and darken the shadows a little bit (use the color variations tool). I'll try to take a pass at the posted version to show you what I mean.
I think it seems, initially, like you should be able to do everything in camera, but there're some really legitimate artistic things that need photoshopping, to compensate for what you would normally do in developing the film.
Anyway, it seems like you had some fun on your vacation, so that's awesome. And definitely post more stuff.
EDIT: Perhaps something like the attachment?
