If you are working with long pose (like more than 5 seconds), try to use a simple lamp (LED) to illumine some parts (of full parts) of proxy objects like flowers.
The result is really fantastic, but the approach is really difficult and need a very fine personal feeling of the light, and many many many tries.

of course tripod, 100 iso max, prefer long pose to discover very fine and suprising colors.
Use of a remote control (or the 'reverse timer' ? i don't know the word in english -> retardateur) is really important ! the tripod is not enough.

hope this help!
Olivier