A Visit to the Sunflower Field

Today I went out to the sunflower field.  I used to know where another one was but it's no longer populated with sunflowers, and that's why I call this one "the" sunflower field.  There doesn't seem to be another anywhere in the vicinity anymore.  Too bad too, because the other one had a much, much larger variety of sunflower.  The kind that grow 6-8 feet tall and are bigger around than a dinner plate.  They were cool, and it was necessary to bring a ladder to shoot over the tops of the field, but no more.  So, we shall not lament, as we had a good time in the sunflower field today, (where the blooms are but six to eight inches in diameter and the stalks are four feet or less) and we got a couple of decent shots.  We also noted an abundance of insects and birds populating the field and it was nice to almost get a good shot of a Yellow Warbler?.  Someone can correct me if I misidentify the bird.  So, take a look at these and if you want more, you can visit the album of all the shots here.  Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy.

Just a note about this image if you are wondering.  It was processed in Adobe Camera RAW and the effect is that of reducing the clarity slider, in case you are interested.  It's an interesting effect and I like the little bit of halo it adds.

Compare this one to the above.  It's complete opposite processing in the sharpening department.  I worked the clarity slider to the right to sharpen, increased the blacks and saturation a bit, and then sharpened in Photoshop again for the final.

I like this one, as the leaf on the right seem to portray a form of salutation, as if to say, Hello, welcome, I don't mind posing for you,  and thank you for taking my picture.  hahaha

This is an extremely hard crop.  I was shooting at 500mm from about 50 feet when I got this guy.  Lots of foliage to navigate to get one of these guys.  It was hard to get them in the open or on top of the higher flowers.