Sunflower Family Session | Draper Wildlife Preserve, Rock Hill SC
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what the sunflowers do." -Helen Keller
As a photographer, I often get stuck going to the same locations time after time. There’s nothing essentially wrong with that—I get to know these locations well and what the light does there at different times of the day! However, I love to explore new locations and opportunities for photography! When Becky asked me if I would be willing to do some photos of her family when the sunflowers bloomed near Brattonsville at Draper Wildlife Preserve, I was immediately intrigued! I have seen photos of these gorgeous sunflower fields, but I had never seen them in person nor photographed them. Becky did a little research and found out that they bloomed in early July, so we set our date!
The evening of our session, it had just rained, but the sun came back out, and IT WAS HOT. Not just hot—hot and incredibly humid—so humid that you could practically feel your clothes sticking to you the minute you stepped out of the car. And speaking of cars, the parking area where I met the Ackermans was full of cars, but I did not see sunflowers anywhere! We walked down a dark, forested trail, and then, all of the sudden, stepped into a clearing where there were THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of sunflowers in several large fields, all facing the same direction. It was spectacular!
What I didn’t expect was the droves of people who were also there doing the same thing we were, because apparently, these sunflowers don’t last long! We walked down past where the crowds were positioned so that I could photograph the children without having to worry about other people in the background and to give them a bit more space to be free. We were very careful in the fields, leaving no trace and injuring no plants! We also saw many bees, which I found out have become a big part of their family life! (Charles actually raises bees!) After about 30 minutes, everyone was soaking with sweat and pretty much done with photos. However, as you can see, we were able to capture some beautiful family photos and sunflower portraits of these adorable children! (And they don’t even look like they were melting!)
