Soar, sunflower, soar
Helianthus annuus. Cedar Park, Texas. June 22.
© 2017 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers
Perspectives on Nature Photography
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Portraits of Wildflowers 
Looks like it’s ready to launch.
Gallivanta
August 10, 2017 at 4:46 AM
I can’t say about the sunflower, but I was ready to launch myself back up from the ground I’d gotten down on to have a suitable angle for this picture.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 8:20 AM
I am sure you were. If one mentally blocks out the stalk, the sunflower could almost be the sun in the sky.
Gallivanta
August 10, 2017 at 5:35 PM
You mean like this?
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 5:45 PM
Exactly! And how I wish the sunflower or any sun were shining through the clouds here this morning. I need to use my mental powers to block out the clouds around me.
Gallivanta
August 10, 2017 at 5:48 PM
Well, at least you’ve got some pictures from a warm (nay, sweltering) Texas to mitigate your winter gloom down there.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 5:58 PM
Up, up, and away!
melissabluefineart
August 10, 2017 at 9:44 AM
And yet it remained attached to the earth.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 12:36 PM
Such a cheering way to start the day. Now, as for getting up from ground-level position, I often think of our past exchanges about that, realizing that my days of doing that at the drop of a hat are over (which doesn’t mean I’m not tempted to from time to time).
Susan Scheid
August 10, 2017 at 9:59 AM
Oscar Wilde is famous for (among other things) “I can resist everything but temptation.” I still yield to the temptation to lie on the ground for a good picture, and let the rising afterwards be as it may.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 12:40 PM
Wonderful! very cheering. Such a nice flower is certainly entitled to fold one arm over its chest, and take a bow.
Robert Parker Teel
August 10, 2017 at 10:34 AM
It’s not uncommon to find one ray of a sunflower or other daisy-type flower head bent over the central disk. I believe a spider is the common culprit. I don’t know what other critters do the same thing.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 1:57 PM
After I replied I remembered that six years ago, in the first month of this blog, I showed a similar sunflower:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/prairie-redux/
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 2:11 PM
For no good reason that I can explain, I read your title as “Soave, sunflower, soave.” That would do, as well, since it’s clearly a sweet and pleasurable flower. Beyond that, it’s a suave photographer who can pull off an image like this.
Your e-clipped version doesn’t eclipse the original image, but it certainly makes for a fun sun.
shoreacres
August 10, 2017 at 9:37 PM
You set suave Steve to searching and he found that it’s an 821 km trip from the town of Soave in the Veneto region of the province of Verona to Girasole (which means sunflower) on the island of Sardinia:
https://itineraristradali.com/soave-e-girasole
The e-clipped version of the sun is as close as I’m going to get to the e-clipsed version on August 21, given the exorbitant prices hotels are charging for rooms along the path of the sun’s shadow. That usury for the fun sun has me undone.
Steve Schwartzman
August 10, 2017 at 9:54 PM
I’d entertained the notion of heading north to experience the eclipse, but what I was imagining — a pristine prairie, the sliding shadows, the quietness as birds settled in for an unexpected night — didn’t accord very well with reports like this one from FiveThirtyEight. Besides, there’s always the possibility of a great cosmic joke in the form of cloudy skies. I’ll have my fun in the sun right here, and avoid the hassles.
shoreacres
August 10, 2017 at 10:08 PM
Along a path that stretches from coast to coast, it’s highly likely that at least a few areas will be clouded over at the time of the eclipse. That’ll be an unfunny irony for thousands of people. Of course we can’t guarantee fun in the sun at our locations, either.
Steve Schwartzman
August 11, 2017 at 7:29 AM
Lovely! 😃
Julie@frogpondfarm
August 11, 2017 at 2:26 AM
As we drove around our part of town yesterday, I noticed some sunflowers are still going at it.
Steve Schwartzman
August 11, 2017 at 7:32 AM
Very nice! Love the image!
Reed Andariese
August 11, 2017 at 6:41 PM
When I saw that sunflower and those clouds I knew I had to get them together.
Steve Schwartzman
August 11, 2017 at 8:58 PM
Love the POV!!
norasphotos4u
August 11, 2017 at 8:10 PM
I look up to sunflowers.
Steve Schwartzman
August 11, 2017 at 9:00 PM
Lovely image.. Yellows pair well against blues, and I wondered if someone dangled that flower for you — but then read your reply in the comments above… I liked the altered image as well!…
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
August 12, 2017 at 4:22 PM
When I go out photographing in nature close to home I’m almost always alone. Sometimes I act as my own assistant, steadying a subject with my left hand while holding the camera in my right. As you found from reading the comments, the ground is also often my assistant, and I rarely decline to recline.
Steve Schwartzman
August 12, 2017 at 4:28 PM
Ja! My most challenging attempts happen when I’m trying to photograph a snake, and my arm is not long enough -if the snake is on the end of a shovel or in a hand-held bucket or container…. That’s when I am wistful for a willing companion!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
August 12, 2017 at 4:31 PM
Speaking of companions and snakes, you’re already aware that when Eve and I were on our most recent trip, she found this for me:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/a-striking-snake-or-one-that-might-become-so/
Steve Schwartzman
August 12, 2017 at 4:41 PM
That is a very good image of the snake, and the story is a good one too!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
August 12, 2017 at 7:11 PM
As for the altered image, how could I not follow up on Gallivanta’s suggestion, especially when Photoshop makes it so easy?
Steve Schwartzman
August 12, 2017 at 4:43 PM
Easy for you!!!!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
August 12, 2017 at 7:09 PM
There’s much I don’t know about Photoshop, but content-aware fill is pretty straightforward and works pretty well.
Steve Schwartzman
August 12, 2017 at 8:36 PM