Sunflowers and Dahlias

 

The early fall season is some of the best time to go out and enjoy the outdoors. I took an extra day off this week to do some photography. Holland Ridge Farms has a sunflower festival in the fall that I wanted to go to. The farm is on Rue Rd and we have passed it numerous times on our bike rides but I didn't really realize how big the sunflower festival was until some of my friend in the community told me about it. The has acres and acres of sunflowers 

 

and a small section of other types of flowers like gladiolas and dahlias. The festival is mostly a family event. Besides the acres of flowers they have food trucks, hayrides, photo booths and other activities. I wasn't really interested in any of the activities but just wanted to go and take some photos. I got there early and walked to the far end of the farm (which was farther than I thought) to try and get a panoramic photo of the sunflower fields.  

I have never seen so many sunflowers in one field before. It was overwhelming and the picture doesn't real convey what I saw. There were also many different types if sunflowers from small short ones to tall ones that were the size of a car tire. 

I took a lot of pictures of the sunflowers including some with bees on them.

I now have a full portfolio of sunflower pictures so if you need one let me know. 

The best pictures I got were not of the sunflowers but of the dahlias. There are so many varieties of dahlias that they don't look like the same type of flower. 

 

I really like the geometric pattern of the orange one. I also got a good picture of a bee on one of them.

I have been working on my technique for flower photography and I am finally getting results that I'm proud of. I still have more room for improvement but that will just take more practice and will give me more excuses to spent more time outside in some arboretums and gardens.