Lisa and I recently took a small trip to the North Fork of Long Island.   On the North Fork there are lots of vineyards and farms that dot the landscape.  In many of these places, you can find sunflowers growing.

I can’t say that sunflowers are my favorite flower, but they have always seemed special to me.  They often just seem to burst with energy, just like their namesake and it’s rare scene that can’t be improved by the addition of a beautiful, healthy sunflower.

One of the places that we went to was Pindar Vineyards.  I went there because I knew, from friends who were there previously, that they had a wonderful field of sunflowers that would look just perfect in a photo.  However, by the time we got there, most of the sunflowers were wilted and gone.  I was upset about it for about a few minutes when I realized that I could still make a nice photo using one of the few still healthy sunflowers.   I focused on the still blooming sunflower and threw the rest of the photo out of focus to emphasize that one.  The result:  this photo, titled “Sole Survivor.”

Even though we did not find a full field of sunflowers at Pindar, we did manage to stumble across some that were growing in fields along the roadside as we drove around.   We came across one nice field of them and I had to stop to take some shots.  The result was this shot, titled “Looking Up.”

Another time, we managed to catch a few growing by the road just at sunset.  As a result, I got this shot:  Sun and Sunflower.

Lastly, on the last day of the trip, I found this flower.  “Grace.”

As always, comments, critiques and criticisms are appreciated and welcome.  Which of these do you like the best?

Zev