The whole piece was a setup. The sun, background, sands and the "sex" were all arranged deliberately.
1 - The sun was actually a 60W bulb tied on a tripod. A dimmer was use to adjust the brightness.

2 - The sky was created using tracing paper. I crushed the paper, which made wrinkles, and textures were created to simulate the sky.

3 - The sands were actually filled in a rectangular sink measuring 3'h x 4'w x 3'd

4 - Three filters were utilized in this shot. To get rid of the flare Hoya circular polarizing filter is essential,. To give it a warm feeling I used Kenko 85 and Hoya 81C warm filter.

The rectangular sink was placed on the table. The bulb was tied to the tripod and was placed behind two layers of tracing paper. The cactus pot was buried into the sand about 3" deep and was surrounded by some small stones. I carefully tuned the dimmer to obtain the brightness I desired for the sun. Then I composed the cactus on the thirds. The meter reading was obtained from the mid tone on the 'sky'.