Monthly Archives: August 2014

*REVISED, AUG 2023: NOTE: !0 years later, I’m still getting emails from people asking me where to find this field. I heard from one person it is now corn. I’m surprised it is not condominiums. If you want to find cool places like this, do what I did, research the internet, go out and drive around, you’ll find something worthwhile! 🙂

I was planning on going to the mountains on my days off this week–but then I spotted a photo on Facebook by my friend Todd Caudle of a humongous sunflower field. I knew I had to check this field out, so I immediately called him to find out where I had to drive. There are numerous sunflower fields in northeast Colorado, but this particular field is not only humongous, it is relatively undisturbed by buildings, roads, and power lines, and it sits on a slight hill so the full extent of the field can be seen from the road. The size and accessibility sets it apart from other fields I’ve seen. So, I headed up in the afternoon after checking the weather charts; it looked like a storm would form just east of the field as sunset approaches. When I got to the field, there was one other photographer, Mike Renner, already set up to shoot the field. Another half-dozen photographers showed up, but Mike and I were the only ones to stay in this particular location and wait out the storms for sunset.

I spent the next three hours or so scouting and shooting this one gigantic field. I drove up one farm road as far as my car would go, then back-tracked to the original location which had the advantage of sitting up on a slight hill overlooking the field. The light was constantly changing as storm clouds tried to organize south and west of the field.

About an hour into my shoot, a storm started building to our south. It was the storm I expected to develop, but it was a little closer to my location than I anticipated. As thunder started to build in frequency, the other photographers left as Mike and I continued to test various angles on the field.

The rain started falling, and as I looked east it looked like the sun might briefly dip below the clouds, so I set up in anticipation of a rainbow. As the rain got heavier, a couple rainbows did briefly appear, but they quickly disappeared as the rain picked up in intensity. I was soaked!

As the storm moved away to the east, a few lightning flashes appeared but they were few and far between. I set my sights to the east, as the sun dipped lower on the horizon. With sunset getting closer, the textures and colors in the sky became more intense.

It looked like sunset might be a bust as the sun dipped below some gray clouds hanging on the horizon. But you never know with sunsets; colors can explode when moments before everything looks gloomy. This one did not disappoint as the horizon began to glow red. I took out my telephoto lens to concentrate on the endless rows of flowers against the glowing horizon. It was a great afternoon!

Every August, I hit the Great Sand Dunes National Park to photograph the sunflowers and dunes in that light that comes every year in late summer, monsoon light. There’s nothing quite like the dunes when sunlight is dancing in between storm clouds. The light, colors, and shapes are always changing and there’s always something new and exciting to photograph.

Even before I got to the park, the mix of wildflowers on the side of the road–sunflowers and aster–was too much to resist and I pulled over to take a few shots of the distant dune field and flowers.

My initial plan was to look for some sunflowers, so I started hiking up towards High Dune. About two thirds of the way up the dunes, a monsoonal shower hit and I had to stay put as I got pelted by biting rain and wind-driven sand. When the worst of the storm had passes, I turned around to find a rainbow framing the Sangre De Cristo Range to the east.

The storm had chased most of the visitors from the dunes, and since I had not hiked to the top of High Dunes in a while, I decided to continue hiking to the top. I was joined by a family vacationing from Germany, and later a group of young guys who were driving cross-country. There were plenty of scenes to photograph from the high point at the top of the dune field!

There wasn’t much color at sunset, as the sun dipped below a bank of clouds hanging over the distant peaks of the San Juans, but I couldn’t complain after being treated to such a great display of light from the top of the dunes!