It was 2017 since we have visited the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area. Although we have this on the calendar every year, there are some obstacles to going every year. Firstly, the sunflowers are planted so that they bloom around the hottest time of the year. Additionally, the middle of summer has been busy with other photography projects. This year, however, I am much slower on photography project. So maybe this will be the time to go back.
Thinking of visiting the fields, this would be a great way to social distance! Surely the weather will not be forgiving. It is already hazy, hot, and humid as per usual in this area.
Also looking at these photos, we were very lucky with the day we visited. At this time, I only had my phone with me. Given that this was a spontaneous decision to visit, I will plan better if we got this year. Undoubtedly I’ll bring one of my proper cameras and experiment with some ideas I am previsualizing. To be sure I’ll have the website on a shortlist to visit daily until the flowers are ready. If anyone would like to collaborate on some photos, let’s plan to meet out there!
When I was four years old, my mother took me to my first piano lesson. This would be the start of 16 years of formal training in music. Many good lessons learned that translate to photography. One of my first lessons that I learned after getting my hands on the keys was how loud to play. The small “p” is musical notation for softly, quietly and the small “f” is the opposite – play loudly.
These are noted when the composer wants a change from how loud you were playing just before the notation. I remember it being more difficult for me to play quietly than to pound away on the keys! The concept that was taught from very early on was dynamics. It starts very simply, teaching student to play quiet or loud, but changing how loud you play notes increases the contrast that the audience hears in their ears. It expands the dynamic range of the music making it more interesting to listen.
Photography Dynamics
In photography, contrast is always a setting that you can adjust either in camera or in software. Increasing contrast in a photo will make dark parts of the image darker, and light parts brighter. Just as in a piece of music, the increase in dynamic range will make the photo more interesting to view for the eyes. Here is an example from our trip to the McKee-Beshers sunflower fields which illustrates the concept. This photo is how the camera captured it with default settings:
This is how most camera would capture the scene as you walked out into the field. It gets all the information, but there is no ‘pop’ out of the frame. With any photo editing software on your smartphone or computer, you can push the contrast in the frame:
With just that simple change, the image is already a step above what most people will post online from their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phone cameras. It does take a little effort, but it is worth it to make your photography stand out a little from what it posted out there.
Since I had the time, I took a few bracketed exposures to make a high-dynamic range image of the sunflower field. This really increases the local contrast of each of the colors, and gives a more surreal representation of the scene. I tried to make it a little closer to how your eyes will see the scene since the human eye can see much more range of brightness than the camera. I think it came out well!
The photos in this post are about another road trip around town. The area we visited the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in western Montgomery County Maryland. Many of my photographer friends have done shoots in these fields for portrait and fashion shoots. I have wanted to visit, but it has not been on my radar as to when the flowers were in peak bloom. This year, the weekend of July 13 was the peak, so we were a little late in getting to them.
But for our first trip, I think it was perfect. We were not completely sure as to the location of the flowers. Turns out there are multiple fields of flowers in the area that you can explore, all very close to parking areas. With the peak already come and gone, there were not too many people exploring the fields at the same time. We were able to get a good idea of where to come next time.
Don’t get me wrong, though, there were plenty of flowers still in the fields! These sunflowers grew to 4 feet in height. Catching a photo of a bee on a flower was too easy! So many flowers for so many bees, you could spend all the time you wanted getting this. I was not brave enough to get out the macro lens and risk a bee sting by getting very close, but I captured a few:
Just acres and acres filled with bright yellow flowers! It was worth the trip out. I will definitely be on the lookout next year for the peak bloom time. The fields are very accessible, and should be a great spot for all kinds of photography. On a nice overcast day like when we visited, there is plenty of available light to give clean files that can be tweaked for color and contrast later.
