ANGELA B. PAN

Happy Friday! I’m really looking forward to this weekend because I’ll be going to a place that I’ve been wanting to go to for a VERY long time. I’m talking years. I’ll tell you all more about it soon but be sure to follow along on my Instagram if you’re interested in knowing beforehand. It’s not far from the DC metro area, so we’ll just be there on Sunday evening. I’m so excited!

In the meantime, here’s an image I captured a couple of weeks ago at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Poolesville, Maryland. These sunflower fields are unfortunately gone for the season, but I heard Burnside Farms in Nokesville, Virginia may be looking good. I’ve personally never been to that one but have been to the McKee Beshers sunflower fields a whole bunch. What’s great about the sunflower field in Maryland is that there are multiple fields. So if one field hasn’t peaked, you could drive to the next field and hopefully get a different result.

This particular image was taken in the first field, right before they were about to peak. I love how all the sunflowers are facing the camera.

But this image is deceiving, they were actually taller than me. The tallest ones were at least 6ft. So easy to get lost in the fields. Lost in a good way though 🙂

Have a great weekend!

My camera settings for this image is f5.6 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm

Flowers are my favorite. They make me so happy. Especially when you see a whole bunch of them growing like these sunflowers in southern Maryland. This image was taken last year and I’ve heard the ones this year are just couple weeks away from blooming. Can’t wait!

So if you’re in the DC metro area and interested in shooting these sunflowers, google or click this link for McKee Beshers. It’s hard to give an exact location to where they are but on their website, they’ll have a map of where the sunflowers are blooming. That will be your best bet.

If I can offer you any tips on shooting these sunflowers, it would be BRING BUG SPRAY. Not even joking. I’ve never had so many bug bites in my life. Two years ago, I went with my friend Ryan to go shooting and at one point we decided there were way too many mosquitos and we started running back to the car. Tell me how I swallowed 2 of them!!! It’s absolutely nuts how they just swarm you. I’ll never wear shorts out there. I rather be hot in long pants and a shirt before I even think about going there with too much exposed skin. If you haven’t noticed yet, these bugs are for real. Definietly take precautions. The mosquitos and I are not friends.

Other than that, sunset is probably your best time to go too. I’ve tried sunrise a few times but where these fields are located, sunset is definietly the time with the best light. I’ve seen people bring ladders and that’s probably a cool point of view as well. If you have any other questions about these sunflowers, don’t hesitate to ask 🙂 I know a lot of people were asking me about them on instagram so I think that answers the majority of them.

My settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/13th of a second ISO 125 shot at sunset while a storm was approaching.

We only had 20 minutes of shooting time before the rain rushed us out. I’m just glad we had those 20 minutes. The clouds and sky were perfect!

The sunflower fields were a lot of fun for my friend, Ryan and I to take pictures until we got attacked by mosquitos. We had to RUN back to the car to get away. Kinda reminded me of that scene in My Girl. Who remembers that movie?

A little throw back to the summer time.

I don’t know how I missed this the first time I was going through my sunflower fields. I’m glad I went back to look at the pictures. I particularly love the clouds in this image. It had just finished raining and the rain clouds were moving away.

Click here to purchase this image