Rocker 7 Farm Patch Sunflower Photo Session for Tiffany + Family

CLICK HERE FOR INFO ABOUT UPCOMING SUNFLOWER AND FALL PHOTO SHOOTS!

Tiffany and her family at Rocker 7 Farm Patch in Buckeye, Arizona.

One day in October 2020 I heard about the sunflower fields planted by this farming family in Buckeye, Arizona. I just had to see these sunflowers for myself and I really wanted to photograph people there. Years before, I had been part of a group of people who made four acres of sunflowers bloom near Roosevelt Row in downtown Phoenix and I have just loved sunflowers ever since.

I love photographing in the sunflower fields at Rocker 7 Farm Patch (located at 19601 W Broadway Rd. Buckeye, AZ 85326.) I met up with Tiffany and her young adult/teenage kids. Such a beautiful family!

Rocker 7 Farm Patch plants a variety of colors of sunflowers - cream/red/orange/dark red/lemon yellow, and of course the classic dinner plate-sized buttercup deep yellow sunflowers. Rocker 7 is a super popular location and for good reason! You can have a ton of family fun there. In addition to sunflowers, there are food trucks on the weekends, a pumpkin patch (with very reasonably priced pumpkins in all sorts of sizes) picnic tables under a large shaded structure, a large air pillow/jump pillow under shade for kids to run around on, and depending on the year, there are cotton fields or sorghum fields to wander through and get photos.

Going forward I will be doing photo shoots there on weekdays, just because Rocker 7 is such a beloved and popular place for fall entertainment. In all of these photos that you see here, I photoshopped people out of the background. I have found that when I go there on Thursday or Friday afternoons, my clients and I have the place practically to ourselves. And very much the opposite on Saturdays and Sundays when we have to share this gorgeous location with a lot of other sunflower-loving folks! (Although you can beat the crowds by going early.)

CLICK HERE FOR INFO ABOUT UPCOMING SUNFLOWER AND FALL PHOTO SHOOTS!

Siblings at the Rocker 7 Farm Patch Sunflower field.

Two sisters at the Rocker 7 Farm Patch Sunflower field.

The whole family and so many beautiful sunflowers at Rocker 7 Farm Patch!

CLICK HERE FOR INFO ABOUT UPCOMING SUNFLOWER AND FALL PHOTO SHOOTS!

Miles Stevens at the Sunflowers

MARICOPA SUNFLOWERS

My sister Becky and my nephew Jonathan and I decided to drive out to Maricopa to see the sunflowers last month, June 2023. It’s kind of hard to believe now, as hot as it is now in July, but the weather was beautiful in June, especially in the evenings and early mornings. It never got all that hot in June.

Frequently, my sister and I take my 4 year old nephew somewhere fun on Wednesday evenings after work. And we always bring his strider bike wherever we go, because he loves riding it.

I spent some time looking at Google maps and Yelp to decide where to get dinner before we made it out to the flower farm. I wanted to go somewhere fun, tasty, and somewhere Jonathan would like. I found this place called Roots Eatery and so we went there for dinner. It was fantastic. It’s a little hipster spot in Maricopa with tasty food and a great ambience.

After dinner, we drove out to the sunflowers. Jonathan rode his strider bike around and Becky and I took photos of the sunflowers. There were a few groups of people out there, all admiring the sunflowers together. Next to us was this group a folks videoing each other. My sister and I started talking with them and found out they are a music group. I asked them if I could take a group portrait of them. They said yes, right as this train was barreling down the tracks, just north of the sunflower field. So I quickly started taking photos of them in front of the train, because I thought it would be a cool background. It was good to meet you Miles Stevens !! You can find them on Facebook and their music online too.

As long as sunflowers keep getting planted in Maricopa and blooming in June, I will keep going back to see them! Want a photo shoot there? Fill out this form and we can make plans!

Emily's family at Sweet Flower Home

Here is Emily Gipper and her family at Sweet Flower Home, the farm in Buckeye that plants acres and acres of sunflowers that bloom in October. It was early October 2022 and I had just got my new Canon 5D Mark 4 in the mail and wanted to photograph models before I tried out my new camera on clients. There are significant differences between my old 5D and the new 5DM4. One of the significant differences is that the M4 has way higher ISO, which is sensitivity to light. So I was eager to find out what my new camera could do when it was almost completely dark outside.

I’d say the first photo here was taken during the blue hour and the last image was taken when there was barely any light left at all in the sky, like almost completely dark. I have to admit, I did not use the ISO on my camera this night as well as I should have. Being completely new to such high ISOs, I just didn’t think to use it at a higher ISO. After this I went and read a lot about the 5DM4 and ISOs. And I shot this whole session in JPEG!! UGHHHHH was I soooo upset when I realized I hadn’t shot it in RAW. RAW is so much better/easier to edit. But that is why I photographed this family as models with my new camera before I used my new camera to photograph clients. I learned a ton right away from this photo shoot.

There is always soooooo much to learn when it comes to photography. I both enjoy the challenge and somehow wish I could just download all the world’s info about photography and cameras and editing and just know it and never have to look it up, and especially never have to relook it up. For me, it’s not like riding a bike. It’s one of those things you just have to constantly practise and learn and relearn. And of course, technology changes, new products come out, and there is always something new to learn.

Emily is a doula and photographer who specializes in birth photography and we did this shoot the day before her birthday. I’m so glad she and her family were able to make it out the sunflower fields in Buckeye and be my models. Thanks Emily! Check out her website, especially if you are expecting and would like to have your baby’s birth documented.

If you would like to have me photograph you/you + family/friends at the Buckeye sunflower fields in October 2023, fill out this form and I will make sure you are on my list of people first to know about sunflower photo sessions when I figure out when they will be.

Fall Break Sunflowers

Frolic in the Sunflowers

Explore amongst the sunflowers & capture memories

at Sweet Flower Home for Fall Break 2022

How are you making memories this Fall Break with your kids?

Want to bring your family to explore the sunflower fields while getting mini session portraits?

Sweet Flower Home is a working farm owned by Carrie Mayfield in Buckeye, Arizona. Sweet Flower Home has planted thousands upon thousands of different kinds of sunflower seeds, staggering the planting weekly, so that there will be acres and acres of bright yellow blooms all October long in 2022.

The sunflower fields are available to professional photographers who buy a permit. I’ve signed up during the time many Arizona schools have fall break: Friday, October 14th, 2022.

Photo shoots are $150 plus tax, $50 plus tax non-refundable retainer to book, $100 plus tax remainder due on or before the date of your photo shoot. You receive 15 beautifully edited high resolution images in an online gallery - I choose the best photos, edit them in my signature way, and upload to an online gallery and send them to you. If you would like all the good photos (approximately 40-50 edited photos, that is $150 extra.)

Available times are: 6/6:30/7/7:30 AM. In the morning for early risers!

3/3:30/4/4:30/5/5:30/6 PM In the afternoon

Here’s a cell phone video of me (taken by my stepson) at Rocker 7 Farm back in 2020 (when I had pink hair!) I usually get kids doing some running games while I take their photos, either at the start of a session or at the end.

Here are photos I have taken over the years of people in sunflowers. Some of them are from the Valley of the Sunflowers in Phoenix in December 2011 and May 2012. Some are from Rocker 7 Farm Patch in Buckeye, Arizona in October and November 2020 and 2021. Some of the photos are from Agritopia in Gilbert; some are from sunflower fields south of Maricopa. Some of these photos are from picnics and so there are people in the backgrounds, in some I have edited them to remove people in the backgrounds. Some are at sunset, some are at sunrise. and some are in the middle of the day. Some photos have been edited quite a bit, some have not. Some have been edited to look like different types of film photography. PLEASE NOTE: none of these are from Sweet Flower Home. This year will be my first time photographing there! And I can’t wait! Because of the way the sunflowers have been thickly planted at Sweet Flower Home, photographing there should be really awesome!

Paula and son at Rocker 7 Sunflowers

Paula and son at Rocker 7 Sunflowers

Rocker 7 Farm Patch

Rocker 7 Farm Patch

Rocker 7 Farm Patch

Rocker 7 Farm Patch