Saturday evening, weather looks good for a sunset. Recent social media postings had featured fields of Sunflowers on the south downs, near Woodingdean, Brighton, East Sussex.

Sunset or Sunrise Photography

I prefer sunrise photography, problem is getting your back of the mattress at stupid o’clock in the morning. But once up, im good to go! My energy levels are at their highest. Another good thing about early morning, the roads are empty, no people.

With sunset photography you are sitting about all day, waiting for the right time to leave, usually late afternoon or early evening. Problem is by then feeling lethargic, the roads and carparks busy, lots of people.

Problem has been the last few weeks, thick cloud and fog in the morning up until almost midday before the sun makes an appearance. It also depends on what you want to shoot, direction of light and location of the rising or setting sun.

Castle Hill Nature Reserve

No exact location had been given as to where exactly the sunflower fields were at Woodingdean. But someone mentioned Castle Hill Nature Reserve. Had been here before and knew where there was a carpark. So it was going to be a scout too, parked up and followed the footpath towards Castle Hill nature reserve.

I noticed a small sunflower field down in the valley and thought maybe that was what people had been photographing. It was a long path around but needed the exercise. Was greeted with a nice view of Castle Hill on the way round, time to get the camera out.

Sunflower fields spotted

Following the footpath round from Castle Hill, heading south could see on the horizon a huge sunflower field ahead. It was getting later in the day now, worried about missing the best of the light. So took a shortcut up the side of the hill.

On top of the hill, was at one end of the field of Sunflowers. But they were facing away from me. The composition was good though with Seaford head way off in the distance.

Technical Challenge High ISO

It was windy on top of the south downs near Woodingdean. The wind is always a problem when photographing flora if want to avoid motion blur. It means a faster shutter speed. Another issue with a big field of sunflowers you want depth of field, focus from front to back. To much movement for focus stacking, need still conditions for that. So would be small aperture F11-F16 using the hyperfocal or focusing approx. 1 third into the frame.

With the sun at a right angle a more saturated image could be obtained via using a polariser, this reduces light by a further 2 stops. The only option was going to be to raise the ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed. One of the reasons the high range cameras are much more expensive is because they perform very well at high ISO. I would also recommend exposing to the left(not right) or underexposing as long as you are not blocking the shadows.

Sunflower Compositions

There were two large fields of sunflowers. Each was heavily fenced off so compositions were limited. There were lots of distractions to try and avoid not least people taking snaps of sunflowers.

I walked the length of the footpath checking out compositions. Facing west the best were about half away along before the field bent north. Was a shame the sunflowers were not facing west.

Rare Opportunity

The sun was getting lower in the sky now and still lots to scout out. Never seen a field of sunflowers like this, guess there is a good reason for why the farmer chooses to grow sunflowers? A passing local told me, he walks the dog here regularly and in 20 years never seen fields of sunflowers like these, so was a unique experience, worth capturing on digital media.

Sunflower Tresspass

Checked out the second field of sunflowers and again heavily fenced off with just a path running along from west to east. Along this path most visitors were taking snaps with their mobile phones.

At the edge of the second field, the barbed wire fencing was low. Being tall has its advantages and I could step over and trespass to get the shot! This gave me a frame of the sunflowers face on, full frontal! with the sun now setting to the south west. There was interest in the sky worth including as the clouds broke revealing patches of blue that colour compliment the yellow petals of the army of sunflowers.

Sunflower Sunset

The sun was now setting to the south west and the light was getting lower by the minute. With the new viewpoint the frame of the composition could now include the sunflowers blowing in the wind in the foreground and the setting sun in the background.

Dynamic Range Options

The dynamic range of light was now too much for the camera so had to auto bracket. With the wind which had not ceased this meant the over exposed frame would be unusable due to motion blur.

In hindsight and given the conditions rather than auto bracket should have used a medium soft edge graduated filter on the skyline, maybe 3 stops. Will have to put my graduated filters back into my camera bag. This is getting it right in camera rather than post processing via HDR merge.

Never used such a high ISO around 1000 with F11-F16 to get fast enough shutter speed. I love the little bit of motion in the foreground sunflowers. Really adds a touch of dynamism to the otherwise static image. The wind was one issue, another was the residential property in the background. But the eye when looking at the image does not settle there.

The high wind and low light of the sunset did restrict your options but happy with these high ISO images. With the sun now in front could remove the polariser.

Once the sun had set the light was too low to continue plus the petals of the sunflowers were now not being backlit by the setting sun. Good night out on the south downs near Woodingdean. Got my first September landscape photographs.