Sunflowers

This past winter, Mr Jack Riepe, of the Twistedroads Blog fame; had lamented several times to me the lack of greenery in my shots of Colorado during the winter.

Now that we've gone through the year's wettest month, the surrounding countryside along my commute road has greened up considerably. I've been watching sunflowers grow taller and taller along the side of the road and today thought there were tall enough to take pictures.

I spotted a small dirt trail leading off from Powhaton Road, bordering a farmer's field, which held promising stands of sunflowers. I moved slowly along this trail, till I found a suitable spot and took several shots.

However, shooting into a bright sky with a dark background, is tricky. Had to do some retouching using the services of picnik.com, an online version of photoshop as it were:


I then, with some effort, turned Brigitta around on the trail and started heading out back to pavement. I stopped a couple of times more for more pictures and the best one I could manipulate is this one:


I think I'll try these shots again with bright sunlight overhead the next time and see how they turn out.

Oh, and you'll have noticed the gray skies overhead? Yep, got caught in some light rain as I neared the house. It's all good.

So there you go Mr Jack Riepe, I hope you like them. Dammit. : )

Update: Gail of sheridesabeemer.com, photoshop guru and beemer rider, cleaned up the unsightly power lines and towers in the first picture. I had included them since I thought they added some "flow"; but as you can see below....it's better without them:


By the way, I don't know about you all, but the picture above reminded me of this painting:

Christina's World, by Andrew Wyeth
(yes, I flipped the picture to fit the posting)

Or is it just me?