Sunflower Buds

Last spring I planted several large pots with sunflower seeds. I had a heck of a time getting the squirrels and chipmunks to leave the sprouting seeds alone. There are a few sunflowers getting close to blooming. There is one on the deck that is the largest and it is blooming now.

Last weekend I took quite a few photos of the bud as it was just opening. These are some of my favorite photos of the summer. One of the members of the photo club made a comment on Flickr that the photos showed movement. They do! When I look at them I see a crab's mouth parts moving as it gathers tiny bits of food.

The challenge with these photos and anything outside this time of year is the humidity. As soon as I stepped out onto the deck to take the photos – my camera fogged up. I used a microfiber cloth to clear the lens and snapped a couple as the lens was fogging over again. Those are kind of interesting.

The best thing to do – and I did this then and on another morning – is to set up the camera on the tripod or set it on a table and leave it for a few minutes. The other morning, I came back into the house to get a glass of water. After a little while, you return and the lens is clear. On a super humid day the cool camera lens will have the moisture in the air condense on it. Once the lens and camera comes to the same temperature as the outdoors, the condensation ends.

I am going to send one of the sunflower bud photos in to go with this blog. If you don't see a photo with the blog, check back later to look for it. I think flower buds make as good (sometime better) photos than the flowers!