The living
The day after I took the photo of dead vines on a dead tree that you saw last time, I took this radiant one of Maximilian sunflowers, Helianthus maximiliani. Note the wispy clouds and the daytime moon.
The date was October 24, 2013, and the location was E. Yager Ln. at E. Parmer Ln., in a field where I’d never photographed before.
© 2014 Steven Schwartzman
That is my son’s birthday.
Most people never notice the moon in the daytime. They don’t look up.
Based on my desktop planetarium software, the moon was toward the west southwest and looked this way.
http://bit.ly/1ncmCZO
Jim in IA
January 28, 2014 at 6:33 AM
Happy belated birthday, which seems appropriate for this belated view of bright wildflowers and sunshine.
It’s true that we often don’t look up. At the same time, to take pictures I often kneel or sit or lie on the ground, so you could say that looking up is second nature for this nature photographer.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 7:00 AM
True. I notice that in many of your pictures.
Jim in IA
January 28, 2014 at 7:02 AM
A really nice image. The prospective captured the sense of habitat as well as plant detail all in one shot.
John Bradford
January 28, 2014 at 6:59 AM
Thanks, John. From looking at my archives just now I can report that I also took plenty of pictures in which I got down on the ground and aimed at a higher angle than what you see here in order to isolate the sunflowers against the sky and wispy clouds. In this case, though, with the hint of habitat provided by the tall trees, maybe we can call the image a vertical landscape.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 7:11 AM
oh that is a perfect image to brighten a cold day in the northern hemisphere!
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Playamart - Zeebra Designs
January 28, 2014 at 7:31 AM
Yes, it’s nothing like what’s in the photograph in Austin this morning, even though we’re pretty far south in the U.S.: the sky is gray-white, the temperature is 28° (–2°C), and there’s light precipitation that’s freezing on its way down. Brrr.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 8:01 AM
ooh. brr is right! i hope that you dodge an ice storm – those are so destructive and nasty – yet they are so beautiful.
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
January 28, 2014 at 8:29 AM
Not surprisingly, the local news channels are reporting lots of collisions on the roads overnight and into the morning. I let prudence be the better part of valor and rescheduled a 9:10 appointment that I had for this morning; I live in a hilly part of town, and I can see that the street in front of my house is slick with ice.
This is the second dose of ice we’ve had in a week, but unfortunately for nature photographers, in neither case has it been the kind of ice that encases plants and trees and transforms them into something magical. It just coats sidewalks and streets, making cars slide and people fall.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 8:39 AM
you were smart to cancel/postpone that meeting! i don’t miss that ice at all!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
January 28, 2014 at 8:53 AM
Oh what a cheery photo on yet another dark and wet day here – I am thinking of building an ark.
Heyjude
January 28, 2014 at 9:18 AM
Maybe you can build an imaginary ark out of sunflowers. (I can hear the Beatles: “We all live in a yellow sunflow’r ark, yellow sunflow’r ark, yellow sunflow’r ark…) Texas is as dreary and cold this morning as the UK.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 9:23 AM
What a beautiful sight on this dreary day. We’re still dry, but the rain is advancing from the north, and the temperature’s dropping – not a good day for man, beast or sunflower.
This one must have felt like quite a gift – not just the flowers, but the fact that you’d found a new field.
shoreacres
January 28, 2014 at 10:08 AM
That’s a novel troika: man, beast, sunflower.
It’s common to find new sites when I travel far afield (an apt expression), but sometimes I surprise myself with a location that’s not remote but that somehow I’d overlooked for the 15 years I’ve been doing nature photography in the Austin area. I’ll have to go back and see what this site looks like in the spring—assuming no one has built anything on it by then, because that northeast part of town has undergone lots of development in recent times.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 10:20 AM
Just what I needed today Steve, after a grey day here in Bavaria. Pure sunflowery sunshiny delight! (And with a German name too!)
Cathy
January 28, 2014 at 10:40 AM
From what you say, Cathy, and what I hear on the news, large parts of Europe and North America have the blahs now, so a jolt of “pure sunflowery sunshiny delight” is just the thing.
You’re right about the name: the Maximilian sunflower is named for Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied, a German botanist who lived from 1782 to1867. At
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Maximilian_of_Wied-Neuwied
you can read more about him.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 11:26 AM
Thanks Steve!
Cathy
January 28, 2014 at 3:43 PM
Beautiful color combo. And the moon is a nice bonus!
Michael Glover
January 28, 2014 at 3:52 PM
Yes, a field of wild sunflowers against a blue sky is something special, one of the joys of living in central Texas. The moon always seems larger in person than in a landscape photograph, but there it was and there it stayed.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 4:48 PM
One of your classics. Unbeatable. The blue and yellow are great together.
Tropical Flowering Zone/Maria
January 28, 2014 at 7:20 PM
Thanks, Maria. The sunflowers and sky did most of the work for me.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2014 at 8:12 PM
What a bright, colourful and wonderful image ! I love the clouds 🙂
Jocelyne
January 29, 2014 at 8:15 PM
Welcome to the wildflower fields of central Texas. The ones in the spring are the best known, but fall is a great time, too. I’ve been fortunate to incorporate those kinds of wispy clouds on plenty of occasions.
Steve Schwartzman
January 29, 2014 at 8:46 PM
joyful.
sedge808
January 29, 2014 at 9:13 PM
It seems especially so in this bleak winter.
Steve Schwartzman
January 29, 2014 at 10:22 PM
Others have said much the same, but I’ll add: this one just makes me plain ol’ happy. Thanks!
Susan Scheid
February 5, 2014 at 6:18 PM
You’re welcome, Susan. While Texas is still mild by New York standards, we’ve been having an unusually cold winter here and the sight of sunflowers is as cheery to us as to you.
Steve Schwartzman
February 5, 2014 at 7:59 PM