I made these four photographs on July 14 and August 11, 2024. They start with yellow wildflowers beside a Colorado lake, then move closer to a seed head, a sunflower, and a honey bee crossing its patterned center.
The meadow establishes the scale, July 14
I started with the broadest view. A 20mm lens keeps the flowers large in the foreground while still including the lake and surrounding hills. The individual stems become part of the larger landscape, forming a band of yellow that runs toward the far shore.
Less than two minutes later, I used the same focal length much closer to a goat’s-beard seed head, also known as salsify. Its pale sphere is made from long seed beaks and fine, umbrella-like hairs. With the meadow falling softly out of focus, those radiating lines become the whole structure of the photograph.
The circle gathers light, August 11
Four weeks later, I found the same circular pattern in a sunflower field. I photographed one full bloom straight on at 32mm and f/9. The whole flower stays in the frame, with leaves and quieter blooms still visible around the edges. Its center is dark and dense, surrounded by a looser ring of yellow petals.
For the final frame, I moved to 105mm. The petals become a bright border, and the center resolves into repeating rows of florets. A honey bee crosses the lower edge and interrupts the pattern. This last photograph stays close, inside the flower rather than out in the field.
Moving closer
Across the four photographs, I kept moving closer. I started with flowers in the meadow beside the lake, then moved into the lines of a seed head. Four weeks later, the sunflower brought back the same circular pattern before the final frame moved into its center and found the bee.