Tomi Kelley  

Buckeye on a Sunflower by Tomi Kelley

July 2026 - Buckeye on a Sunflower

About the Image(s)

This month our local Art & Ag Program hosted an art morning at a local farmer’s sunflower fields. Photographing sunflower fields is very popular around here so I gave it a try. As with most things, I learned a lot on my first attempt and hope to try again. Our time window was 0800-1200 with the sun already up. The heads of the flowers are up and facing the sun, but the lighting is bright. I took many close-up shots and wide field shots. This little butterfly was a willing participant that added some variety.

I increased the luminance and saturation on the flower and cooled down the green to add some color separation. This is cropped in to isolate the flower. Would you crop in more or less?

Canon R3 RF 24-70 mm 2.8 at 70 mm
1/6400 sec f/4.5 ISO 200

4 comments posted

Butch Mazzuca   Butch Mazzuca
Tomi - love your choice of subject - sun flowers have a way of engaging viewers - a brilliant flower with with strong visual impact. I think too the butterfly adds a pleasing and well-placed secondary point of interest while being the image's storytelling element i.e., a pollinator visiting a sunflower or a mutualistic interaction between a butterfly and its nectar source.

Sunflowers are not the easiest subject to get strong compositions and you did well here. Excellent color contrast, detail, and subject separation make the photograph appealing. A well-executed image that is both graphic, inviting and interesting. Nice job.
  Posted: 07/01/2026 22:17:57
Tom McCreary   Tom McCreary
Your image is nicely sharp, especially the butterfly. I like the green around the sunflower. It is a really big sunflower judging by the size of the butterfly. I like the composition with the butterfly in the upper right. It seems to be bright sun light, but you handled it well.   Posted: 07/03/2026 18:44:22
Gaetan Manuel   Gaetan Manuel
The flower and butterfly are sharp. As Butch mentioned, the image tells a story, maybe pollination. The pattern on the butterfly is amazing, beautiful. I would crop the image in the square format to remove the leaves at the bottom.   Posted: 07/06/2026 15:54:12
Judith Flacke   Judith Flacke
Beautiful shot although, being picky, it seemed that the yellow was oversaturated on my computer so I played around in PS to retrieve the highlights a little. I also darkened the background a bit, and cropped a little as there did seem to be a lot of background... Do hope you got some closeup shots of the butterfly in the sunflower as well - just beautiful! :)   Posted: 07/14/2026 11:00:48
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