This weekend will be filled with floral photography workshops, first with Lotus blossoms at Kenilworth Gardens, and then the following day Sunflowers at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area.

Preparation is always essential in photography and even more so when I’m leading people on a photo field trip. So earlier in the week I spent the time to visit each location to spend time getting my own captures and to get a lay of the land. McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area is set along the Potomac River in Poolesville and is a very popular place for visitors to get beautiful images of sweeping fields of sunflowers.

The sunflower fields are planted for wildlife management and provide essential sunflower seeds for a number of bird species. Once again, an o-dark-thirty departure lead me to the sunflowers fields just as the sun was coming over the horizon. After a few wide sweeping landscape…

Still. Everything is quiet in the hot afternoon sun. The birds are hiding in the deep shadows of the woods, and only occasionally do I hear one call. The little boy next door has stopped running, yelling, and playing. No squirrel chitters, no chipmunk squeaks. Barely a car goes by. People are already where they want or need to be.

Meanwhile, in the cool of the garden, that brute of a hosta—Frances Williams—blooms.

Minerva, the little cat, waits until nighttime, when she can romp in the dark, and no one will see her.

Except for the small bird, who watches and waits, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

No matter the temperature, the garden is a mysterious place.

Plus I am still eating lots of lettuce and arugula, although they’re both almost finished now.  How about you?

We got back from Michigan on Saturday, and I like to think that our various Clematis varieties had put on a show to welcome us home.

Clematis ‘Jackamanii’