Anatomy of a Composition - A Blooming Season

Returning from a 3 week adventure on the road, capped off by a perfect sunflower field stumbled upon while out on the highway. Sunflower season always reminds me that a new school year is just around the corner, and this year, year number 29, definitely reminds me that there are fewer “new years’ eves” in front of me than there are behind me.

The school year starts in early August and this is when the Sunflowers start to bloom in Colorado. It is always a challenge to find the fields east of Denver as they continuously rotate around the airport. While this adds to the creativity in each years’ set of compositions, it makes finding my rhythm for shooting a bit more difficult. Dynamic weather over the different evenings, but was able to capture this storm as it moved south across the Front Range - next year I'll be more attentive of these opportunities.

This year’s adventure in sunflower photography included the surprise of stumbling onto the most incredible set of fields in the middle of Kansas hitting their peak! In addition to the DIA fields, which were the biggest in a few years, this happy accident while returning from a trip east added to my conviction that I can never get tired of photographing Sunflowers.

A Blooming Season - ISO 160 | F/8 | 1/60 sec. ~ 14mm - Sony a7riii w/Sony FE 14GM

A Blooming Season - ISO 100 | F/5.6 | 1/400 sec. ~ 300mm - Sony a7riii w/Sony FE 100-400GM

A Blooming Season - ISO 160 | F/8 | 1/60 sec. ~ 14mm - Sony a7riv w/Sony FE 14GM