The middle of summer has arrived and if you live in the DC area we are lucky to have some great fields for sunflowers that are open to the public. Mckee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area grows several fields each year and currently the flowers are peeking!
Having shot the sunflowers each year for the past several years I find it a bit challenging to come up with fresh compositions. On the way to the field this year I noticed some fast moving puffy clouds and was hoping to do some long exposures, but by the time I arrived the clouds had moved out and I was left with a clear blue sky. I reached for my seldom used fisheye lens and came up with the shot above. I used a reflector to light up the face of the flower, but fill flash would have been an option here as well.
Kim Kelly
19 Jul 2016I was at McKee-Beshers a week ago Sunday (7/10) and the flowers were only about 4ft high and lots of buds. Definitely not at their peak. Have you been back recently? How high are they? Thank you for the update.
Cheers…Kim
Denise Silva
19 Jul 2016Hi Kim… We were there last Saturday and the main field (back half) looks good. There are some birds, though I expect the birds to get more prolific once the flowers really start to seed, which is likely to be this weekend with all this heat. The field on Hunting Quarter is taller but requires a bit more of a walk to get to it. Drive past the main field and take the next left, you will see a parking area with a path out through the field, follow it and there are more sunflower fields back there. Denise