Field Of Dreams

'A sunflower field is like a sky with a thousand suns.'

Those who read my rambling in-between the pretty pictures, know that at one time I wanted to pursue photography as a living.  I ended up taking the more 'sensible' route, at least to my parents, and majored in Physiology.   Although I have a decent career, my creative longing have me often think of again picking up a camera.  It's also why I channel so much of my creative energy into FH, something I'm rarely able to do with my job.  When I do pick up my camera again, one of the first places I'm going to drag a model to, will be a sunflower field.  The green's and yellow's provide a lush, colorful background and given how essential light is in photography, I can't think of a better place to shoot than a field of suns. 

In addition to providing cut flowers for our table, seeds and of course oil,  sunflowers attract pollinators, provide shade, act as a living trellis and can even assist in the cleaning of contaminated soil.  It's the reason many farmers grow them among their their vegetable crops, especially corn.  When I was reading about the harvesting of sunflowers, I also couldn't help thinking the process had a somewhat phallic feel to the description....

'Once they grow and there heads get big and full of seeds, you know when to harvest them when the pedals drop off and the head falls over. Cut off the head and store them in a plastic bucket until they dry out, then shake them the seeds come out pretty easily.'