Crack of Dawn

On Thursday night I met with my photo sharing group and somehow Lenore convinced me to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning so that we could go to the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area near Poolesville to shoot sunflowers at sunrise. Since sunrise was around 5:50 am, she was picking me up at 4:45 (OK, closer to 5:00) so we could get there for the sunrise. We were the first photographers there - although we were joined by others. We even teased a few asking them why they were "late." Despite getting up so early, the light was wonderful and I got some good shots. Here are some of my images (as always, click on any image to see it bigger):



They all seemed to know which was the sun was going to come from and all turned that way ... except this guy ...



He just seemed to march to the beat of a different drummer.

There were plenty of bees ...



... but they did not bother us and made for some interesting images.



The state plants rows of sunflowers each year - which peak in July - to lure doves for hunting. We did see a few shot gun shells in the fields (no picture).
As we ventured farther into the field sometimes we would get lost in the rows ... surrounded by the sunflower plants. So I shot some macros.



I brought my new lensbaby but I still don't have the hang of it. I guess that I will have to practice practice practice ...



We shot and shot and shot ... from one angle and another ...





I can't wait to see Lenore's shots.



A little Lightroom Preset play.

And as we headed out, we saw a patch of thistles along the path ...



... and had to shoot just a little more. And yes, I cut off part of a leaf in these images but sometimes you need to do that ...



Here is a link to an old Washington Post article about the sunflower fields: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071301937.html

And here is another link to the wildlife management itself: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/central/mb.asp