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I saw this field of sunflowers on the way back from an afternoon outing along 56 highway in southern Douglas and Osage counties. There are many old buildings and farms along this route, and the photographic possibilities are many. Luckily there was a north-south dirt access road along the east side of this field, and as the sun was getting low in the western sky, I thought there might be some sunset images. The field was a little sparse near the road, and I found these few lone flowers to concentrate upon. The sun was still in the sky, but was obscured enough by the light cloud cover that I decided to include it in the image. This must be done carefully, as there are always issues of lens flare and remnants of the intense light that often manifest themselves in the image. The situation, however, does create a very nice warm glow in the image, and creates a very attractive back-lighting situation.

By the time I found this location and set up my camera, the sun was nearing the horizon, allowing most of the frame to be used for the field. To separate the close sunflowers from the distant field, and to blur the sun, I chose a relatively large aperture. I made three exposures, and indeed all of them had some tiny light abherrations due to the direct photography of the sun, but it was possible to remove them.