I opted to take the road less traveled on the way home from a WDW gig in Chicago a couple weeks ago and happened upon these beauties. I pulled over, obviously. I’ve been on the lookout for the the perfect sunflower field for some time, but they’ve always been too sparse, too tall (there are lots of varieties of sunflowers, some are just waaaay to enormous),  inaccessible, or past their prime. This field was perfection. Some neighbors riding by on horseback said they had just popped a couple days prior. Since my only available model at the time was the drooling-in-his-sleep teenage drummer boy I had left back in the car, I snapped a couple quick pics of the blooms and resolved to make the trip back out there with my shorties. Two days later we packed a picnic lunch and headed out. Now, I totally get it if you find sunflowers TOO bright, TOO cheerful, or even cliché. There’s something about a flower that is so big and bright that it BEGS to have it’s picture taken – it’s like it’s trying too hard, right? If this is how you feel you are in luck because I brought one home and drained it of its happy yellow just for you. But you know what? With its graceful stem, crown of petals, and fascinating Fibonacci spiral seed pattern, it is still beautiful – maybe even more so since the eye is not distracted by the gold, but forced to notice it’s amazing structure 🙂