Provence: Sunflowers I & II

[Mike Buckley]

My wife and I saw sunflower fields only for the second time in our lives while vacationing in Provence a few weeks ago (the first time was six years ago in Nova Scotia), so I just had to stop and make a couple of photos.

Please click to view at a larger size.

[rpcrowe]

Both these shots are quite nice but, IMO, the second shot is spectacular.

There is a field of sunflowers near my home and I have been intending to capture an image of it for years. I wanted an image quite like #2.

I don't know if I will shoot it now because it is almost plageristic...

[Rita]

Although we see quit a few sunflowers here I can't say that I have ever seen a field of them like this. That is one big field. In #1 I really like the contrast of the sunflowers against the dark sky. But #2 I prefer for the feeling of being right in the midst of them. They are both very nice shots.

[Wavelength]

Beautiful images...we have sunflower fields here 150km away; it is the harvest season there; i wanna go...yet feel lazy

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Donald]

... the second shot is spectacular.

I agree.

Aaahhhh Provence (sigh).

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

Considering the special interest in the second image by some, I'll explain how it came to be. I was sending about one image per day throughout our trip to three people who wanted to follow along as we went from place to place. Though I still haven't figured out how to reliably see anything in a smart phone's LCD when using its camera outdoors even on a cloudy day, that was how I was taking and sending those pictures completely unedited except for an occasional crop. I knew I couldn't get a successful photo of the overall sunflower field using my smart phone, so I decided to walk into the field and capture a closeup of a flower. One nearby plant was holding its blossom higher than almost all of the others, so I chose that one as my subject. When I returned to the car and could properly see the captured image in the relative darkness of the car's interior, I realized that it might be better than anything I had taken using my DSLR. One of my friends I sent the image to immediately edited it and made it the wallpaper image on her computer whereas it wasn't until weeks later that I reviewed it on my own computer. The smart phone is the cheapest one I could find a year ago offered by my carrier, a Samsung SM-G360V Galaxy Core Prime with Android 5.1.1.

[Ziggy]

Nice captures. Would love to see a field of sunflowers.

[DanK]

very nice, and I agree that #2 is the better.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Jim and Dan!

[bnnrcn]

Lovely colors Mike.#2 for me too

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Binnur!

[RandyRFJP]

Fantastic photos! Thanks for sharing them.

[MitchellKrog]

Stunning shots, both of them. I used to live in an agricultural area and had 3 years when they planted sunflowers on my doorstep. This brings back fond memories. Will post some of mine one day

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Randy and Mitchell!