Even from the back, there is no denying that this is a sunflower!
“Back at Ya, Babe” (Sunflower at Colby Farm) Nikon D300, 105mm macro, F/36, 1/40s, -0.3 EV, ISO 640
I’m always teaching my students to look at subjects from all possible angles because you just never know what you’ll discover. Why stick with the obvious?
What drew to me to photograph this particular flower is that one curled bract determined to set itself apart from the rest.
Sort of reminds me of someone I know… 
What would we do without bees? I know that if they didn’t do what they do oh, so well, I wouldn’t have any bee-U-tiful flowers to photograph! 
“Buzzzz” (Field Honey Bee on Sunflower at Colby Farm) Nikon D300, 105mm macro, F/10, 1/250s, -0.7EV, ISO 200
This field honey bee couldn’t have cared less about me or my camera. Nothing was going to keep this girl from her pollinating duties!
Carry on, little bee. Carry on!
Nothing better than a gorgeous sunflower set against a clear blue sky!
“Sun Worship” (Sunflower at Colby Farm) Nikon D300, 65mm, F/8, 1/2000s, -0.3EV, ISO 400
Took a trip out this morning to Colby Farm in Newbury to check out their infamous field of sunflowers. My, it is impressive! I haven’t yet processed all of the images, so expect to see ‘all things sunflower’ over the next few posts.
This first image was taken with a 10.5mm full-frame fisheye lens. Fisheye lenses offer a HUGE field of view – I’m talking 180 degrees so you get everything in your frame! Amazing!
The drawback? Weelllll, in order to produce that ultra-wide range of view, the image HAS to be distorted. Any straight lines, either horizontal or vertical, not going through the center of the image will be curved…sort of the like the image is bulging out towards you. This is known as ‘fisheye distortion’ and can be used quite humorously in photographs.
I didn’t do anything crazy with the lens today, but rather, used it to take in as much of the large field as I could. My lens was practically sitting on top of the closest sunflower (complete with busy bee) and yet, the resulting image shows the field of sunflowers stretching out on either side.
“Field of Gold” (Sunflower Field at Colby Farm) Nikon D300, 10.5mm full-frame fisheye, F/22, 1/250s, ISO 400
Pretty darn cool, eh?
