A Lumix DSC-LS50 compact travel camera was used to move in close and capture the vibrant colours of the small sunflower from a low angle that shows off the details of the plant’s fine hairs.

Flower photography with the Lumix DSC-ZS50 /TZ70 compact camera

Everyone need to plant flowers, especially sunflowers in their gardens for the butterflies, bees and birds. But don’t stop there. Sunflowers’ magnificent blooms will bring a smile to your face and brighten any corner of the garden where you choose to grow them. More importantly, however, are the images these flowers offer to creative garden photographers who are willing to spend a little time exploring details and creating memorable images of these great plants.

All flowers, but especially Sunflowers have long been a favourite of photographers, but capturing memorable images can be a challenge.

For more on photographing flowers in your garden, check out my comprehensive post on Flower Photography.

Whether it’s a single bloom in your garden, a small grove of sunflowers in a corner of the yard or a massive field stretching as far as the eye can see, doing these cheery colourful flowers justice involves different approaches, techniques and a creative eye.

Sunflowers and red barn — *This grouping of sunflowers were photographed growing in a small field. The red barn adds a nice touch of colour to the image.*

Give your lenses a workout shooting sunflowers

Sunflowers offer the opportunity to give all your lenses a workout, from wide angles to capture an expansive field of flowers, to short telephotos capturing a selective group of flowers. Longer telephotos will bring the flowers in close if you are shooting from a distance, but also compress the field, stacking the flowers so they appear almost on top of themselves. And finally, that macro or close focusing lens will get you in close to capture the interesting colours and details sometimes overlooked by the sheer beauty of the flowers.

Be sure to check out my post on how to grow your own sunflowers in your garden.

This field of sunflowers was taken with a telephoto lens that helped to compress the image.

What’s the best time to photograph Sunflowers?

If you have not planted your own sunflowers, (and you really should) late summer is the best time to look for patches of these growing in private gardens.

Remember that trespassing on private property to get the ultimate selfy is never a good idea. Use your longer lenses to photograph from the road, or ask the landowner if it would be possible to get some images of the flowers while they are in bloom. Possibly, offering to share some of your images with the landowner would open the door to allow you a closer approach.

Depending on where you love and how early the sunflower seeds were sown, expect to start seeing them bloom as early as July, and reaching their peak in mid- to late-August, and ending in September, when you can explore the photographic possibilities of capturing the dying foliage.

Be sure to check out my post Fields of Gold: Sunflowers and Goldfinches.

Once the flower bloom is out in full, you can expect up to about 20 days of bloom from a single large specimen. For the smaller multiple flower varities, the bloom time can be much shorter, so take advantage of them once they begin. One of the benefits of the multi-flowered varieties, is that you will have new flowers coming into bloom at the same time as you have flowers in decline. It’s a great time to attack the plant from multiple angles, filters and creative approaches.

Sunflowers offer endless potential for great photographs

Here are ten tips to inspire you to get out with your camera and capture images of these magnificent blooms

1) Look for the right light: Just because the subject is exciting and colourful, does not mean you should ignore the basic principals of good photography. Look for dramatic lighting to take your images to another level. Backlighting at sunset or sunrise offers photographers an opportunity to capture the petals with a translucent glow and a beautiful rim light. Don’t forget to also use backlighting to catch the fine hairs that cover the plant.

Sidelighting can also be used to bring out texture in the individual flower heads or even an entire field of sunflowers. A little underexposure will enhance the effect and a polarizing filter will help to make the colours pop by removing any glare on the plants.

2) Get in close: Don’t be afraid to move in close with your macro or close focusing zoom lens. These flowers are so large that there is no need to move in that close to capture the finer details of the flower petals. Most compact cameras or close-focusing lenses are able to capture interesting images up close. Try including portions of the flower’s inner circle of seeds with several petals for a very graphic effect.

3) Get down low: By shooting up at the plant with a wide angle lens, you will emphasize the sheer size of the plant and make the viewer think the plant is even bigger than it actually is. The view from below is also the one most people (especially children) get when they look at the larger plants. Wait for a clear blue sky and darken it even more by using the polarizing filter for best results. If you have a Cokin Yellow/blue polarizer in your arsenal, this is the time to pull out and get it on your camera. The Blue/Yellow polarizer is an interesting effect filter that works like any polarizer accepts it enhances, depending how it is positioned, the blues and yellows in your image.

4) Look for a blue sky background: A solid blue background isn’t usually an ideal backdrop for most images but it works well for sunflowers, especially when a polarizer makes the yellow flowers pop out against the deep blue sky. Of course, if you are not including the sky in the image, a good overcast sky will give you a soft, even lighting that will work for more intimate images of the flowers, either in small groupings or in close-up mode.

5) Shoot in B&W: Sunflowers shot in black and white have a timelessness to them that can result in excellent art images that you will want to frame and hang in your home. Most cameras whether they are DSLRs, mirrorless or compact point-and-shoots include black and white settings. Some, like the Fujifilm X10 (Link to my separate article on this popular camera) and other Fujifilm cameras include red, green and yellow filters to enhance tones in B&W images. Use the red filter for dramatic skies and the green filter to lighten the sunflower plant but not the flower itself.

6) Look for interesting angles: Get down low, shoot up. Get high and look down. Shoot the flower from the back, the side, in silhouette. This is your chance to “milk” every angle out of the plant. It’s important to take advantage of the opportunity when you have it.

7) Watch for birds, bees or butterflies: Sunflowers are not just flowers with a pretty face. These things attract everything from butterflies to birds and you would be wise to spend some time being ready for garden wildlife to pay a visit to the flower in search of pollen or the prized sunflower seeds. If you know one of your prized sunflowers are coming into seed, pull up a chair, grab a coffee or glass of wine, set up your camera on a tripod and wait it out. You may not be waiting too long before you have a visitor and a memorable image.

8) Photograph them as they emerge: Don’t just wait until the flower has a emerged to begin photography. Consider capturing the flower in all it’s stages to create a little photo essay.

Don’t forget to photograph the flower in all phases of its life.

9) Beautiful in death: Don’t pack up the camera when the flower fades, a dead or dying sunflower can be simply beautiful especially in B&W. Besides the symbolic value of capturing these flowers as they fade away, there is something touching about an image of a sunflwer in severe decline. Maybe it’s a reminder that the end of summer is upon us and the cooler temperatures of Fall are about to begin. Late fall can be especially great for capturing sunflowers. Get up early on a cold morning to capture a coating of frost on the dead flower head, maybe you’ll be lucky to capture a little hoarfrost on one of your flowers.

10) Fun with filters: There is something about a magnificent sunflower that just lends itself a multiple approaches. I’m not a huge fan of the built-in filers available on today’s cameras. Some are just silly, others are overused, but sometimes the situation calls for a full-fledged filter attack on the subject. The flower is not going anywhere, milk it for everything its worth.

Lumix DMC-ZS50 filters exposed

I recently did just that with a multi-flowered sunflower planted in a container in our front yard. My camera of choice was the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS50 (ZS70 in Europe). See my earlier post on the Lumix travel camera in the garden.

This full featured 12-megapixel compact travel camera complete with a 30X Leica super zoom lens (24-720 mm on a full-frame 35 mm camera) is packed with built-in filters.

The number of “creative exposure modes” on this camera seem endless: Panorama Shot, Scene (Portrait, Soft Skin, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Handheld Night Shot, Food, Baby1, Baby2, Pet, Sunset, High Sensitivity, Glass Through, HDR, Starry Sky, High Speed Video, 3D Photo), Creative Control (Expressive, Retro, Old Days, High Key, Low Key, Sepia, Dynamic Monochrome, Impressive Art, High Dynamic, Cross Process, Toy Effect, Miniature Effect, Soft Focus, Star Filter, One Point Color (15 filters).

Above are just a few images of the sunflowers, taken with the filters built into the Lumix DMC-ZS50.

Most compact camera, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras sold over the past 10-15 years including the Canon Powershot elph series of camera’s and Fujifilm series including the X10, offer a host of interesting and creative modes or filters that enable the photographer to experiment with to create memorable images.

Of course, these modes have their place and are probably best left to specific situations where they are appropriate. I consider sunflowers the perfect opportunity to give them a try. These flowers have an air of fun about them, so why not take advantage of it and get creative.

Filters are a convenient way to add a little creativity to your images, but don’t forget to consider your sunflower photography as potential images to create beautiful painterly images using post processing software. Check out the link for a closer look at how I have used Photoshop and Painter to turn many of my photographs into painterly works of art.

Collecting a series of great sunflower images might even create a perfect opportunity to put them all together in your own photography book. Their are many companies the now make that process simple and inexpensive, and the results can be incredible. Rather than printing the images into 4X6 pictures and stuffing them into plastic sleeves, having them printed and put into book form allows you to leave them out as coffee table books or give them to friends as Christmas gifts. Check out my earlier post on creating your own photographic book.

In Conclusion

What may have begun as a gardening project to grow a few sunflowers could very well become an exciting photographic project to document everything from the emergence of the seedlings in early spring, to the rapid growth throughout early summer, and finally leading to the incredible blooms of these magnificent flowers. Then there are the visitors, birds, bees and butterflies that love the flowers and the seeds they offer.

The photographic possibilities are endless and the images themselves can become more than just a collection of digital files to share with friends on your social media accounts.

This may be the year to create a lasting memory of your summer in love with sunflowers with your own photographic book, or a print on your wall that you turned into a painterly masterpiece.

All it takes is a couple of seeds to get going and your imagination.

How to capture great sunflower photos: Including ten top tips