Sunflower Photo Shoot

Two days ago I wanted to take some photos of the sunflowers. We have some in the garden, just for fun as are not the usual type of which you can harvest the seeds of. My dad always sows some seeds to have a few sunflowers just for fun. I love them as they look great and a nice subject to photograph, especially when the sky is clear and the sun is not so strong.

So two days ago, when I saw how beautiful they are, the first instinct was to reach for my phone and take some photos. Right away I started shooting, but mother nature had other plans for me. The wind started blowing and my photo shoot turned out to be a complete disaster. I'm not a quitter, so despite the strong wind, I still tried to take some photos. So I was pushing the button repeatedly, but by the time the photos were taken, the sunflower was literally out of the picture and I had only the background on the photo. The only choice I had was to give up.

Yesterday was rainy, gloomy, nowhere near the ideal weather to take photos, not to mention the dirt I would have to step in in order to get to the sunflowers. Today on the other hand was nice and sunny, there was no wind at all, so it was my chance to do a sunflower photo shoot, or at least try to. If you like sunflowers, come with me :)

It's not the first time I'm taking photos of sunflowers, so I know what to focus on and just like in case of other flowers, the flower itself may not be the most beautiful. Surprised? Don't be, come with me to show you what I'm talking about.

I tried to find the best angle, so my shadow won't be on the photo.

While I was walking among the flowers, looking for the right angle, noticed something strange. They say the sunflowers are always following the sun, which means they should face the sun. Some of ours were facing the sun, while others weren't. Sooooo, I'm confused now. Are our sunflowers fake? 😂 Are they protesting? Or what is going on here?

This one for example turned its back to the sun, that's why the photo is as it is. This was literally 180°C from the sun. Why? I have no idea.

And here comes the fun part. Remember, I told you, the flowers may not be the most beautiful thing? This is not a bud anymore, but not a flower either, it's in between and green. But I love it.

Look at this beauty! How can you not like it? It's an absolute beauty in my eyes.

Now fun fact about sunflowers. I had no idea, just found out today, but it's interesting.

Generally, each floret is oriented toward the next by approximately the golden angle, 137.5°, producing a pattern of interconnecting spirals, where the number of left spirals and the number of right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers. Typically, there are 34 spirals in one direction and 55 in the other; however, in a very large sunflower head there could be 89 in one direction and 144 in the other. This pattern produces the most efficient packing of seeds mathematically possible within the flower head.

A model for the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979.[17] This is expressed in polar coordinates

r = c n , {\displaystyle r=c{\sqrt {n}},}
θ = n × 137.5 ∘ , {\displaystyle \theta =n\times 137.5^{\circ },}

where θ is the angle, r is the radius or distance from the center, and n is the index number of the floret and c is a constant scaling factor. It is a form of Fermat's spiral. The angle 137.5° is related to the golden ratio (55/144 of a circular angle, where 55 and 144 are Fibonacci numbers) and gives a close packing of florets. This model has been used to produce computer generated representations of sunflowers. source

SunflowerModel.svg.png
Illustration of Vogel's model for n=1 ... 500

How cool is that?

Now let's see who likes sunflowers?

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides: