01-10-12 The Promise

Most photos of sunflower fields show them in full bloom. But I found that sunflowers about to bloom photographed at sunrise have an amazing character and beauty.

80-30-12 Variations On A Theme

Yes, another sunflower shot. They are looking east, incidentally, away from the setting sun. And, yes, they look east all day and all night long. When I was a kid someone told me that they actually turned so they always faced the sun. That would be a form of heliotropism, so my high school biology teacher would say.But sunflowers aren't that ambitious.Canon 5DIII 1/80s f/7.1 ISO100 200mm

08-26-12 Golden (As seen at the Arrow Education Foundation Fund Raiser)

I'm no expert on sunflowers but it seems to me that they go from coming out of the ground to full flower in a fairly short time. And, sadly, they go from full flower to drooping to done in a short time, too.This field is east of Pierre, which doesn't narrow things down much since there are several sunflower fields east of Pierre. We were heading to Lake Oahe, Deb was driving and, after watching several fields go by my window, I said, "Stop. I've got to take some photos."The challenge with photographing sunflowers is something like the challenge of photographing a public building such as the Berlin Hauptbahnhof mentioned yesterday: how do you get a unique picture of something that so many others have photographed? (I just did a Google search for "sunflower pictures" and got 19,000,000 hits!).For better or for worse, this photo is my attempt at something a little different.Canon 5DIII 1/2000s f/2.8 ISO100 35mm[maxbutton id="8"]

08-02-12 Good Soldiers

This is my last sunflower photo for a while, though maybe I need to go back to this field in a week to get the soldiers in full bloom.

07-31-12 Waiting for the Sun

So who takes photos of sunflowers before they bloom? I guess I do, though I'll admit that it was a total afterthought yesterday morning. I was finished with the tree, clouds, and sunrise photos and as I headed back to the truck, I noticed the field of nascent sunflowers that was next to the field I had been standing in.What I liked was the deep green hues of the plants. I also liked the amazing textures in the sunflower heads. And so I took about 40 photos of sunflowers not in bloom. This is the first in a series of three. Bear with me if you're not into green things. . .

07-14-09 Yellow Fields

Here's another photo of sun-ripened crops - this time a seemingly endless field of sunflowers. Sunflowers are a bit of a paradox in that I don't know if there is a crop in South Dakota that is more beautiful when it is in its prime or more ugly when it is ready to be harvested.

Here's a close-up of one of the flowers. (Click here)

1/320s f/6.3 ISO400 300mm Canon 1DII