Agritopia Orchard

I first met Erin at an ultimate frisbee game at a park in Tempe. She was there to watch her boyfriend Ryan play ultimate and I was there to watch my boyfriend Ryan play ultimate. It was soon after my spinal fusion surgery, when I couldn’t play ultimate. (Thankfully my spine got much better after surgery and I eventually was able to play my beloved sport again.) I had a really good time chatting with her and getting to know her!

Fast forward some years later and Erin and Ryan are married with two little kids!

We met up at Agritopia at the peach and citrus orchards for some holiday photos. I loved how their family portraits turned out!

If you want photos at Agritopia, reach out to me on my contact page here. The Agritopia orchards have very limited availability (more limited than it used to be) so if you are interested, we have to sign up right when spots become available. Usually there are some spots in September, October, and November and some very limited spots available when the peach trees are in bloom in early February.

Find me at Rocker 7!

Hi there!

I am writing this blog post for my 2022 clients to help them find me at the Rocker 7 Farm Patch for their sunflower photo shoot coming up in mid October.

The day of your photo shoot I will text you a photo of me, just to help you find me. See the aerial map below - I like to photograph where the red Xs are. This is where we will do your photo shoot, so look for me here.

Rocker 7 Farm Patch is located at 19601 W Broadway Rd, Buckeye, AZ 85326. Entry is $8 per person, including babies and kids.

I see other photographers out at the Rocker 7 Farm Patch and sometimes they are really dressed up. They look as good as their clients. While I would love to look that good and professional, you will usually find me wearing sneakers (I had spinal fusion surgery in 2014 and after that New Balance zero drop sneakers are the only thing that are truly comfortable for me to wear - plus, as a working farm, the sunflower fields do get muddy and dusty.) I’ll be wearing a T-shirt (frequently the T-shirt that Rocker 7 Farm Patch sells) and probably black basketball shorts, because they are the best thing to be able to wear while it’s hot and also sit or lay down on the ground for some shots.

I will have a black wagon with me, full of gear. I bring a step ladder, little chairs for kids to sit on, a little bench for kids and adults to sit on, a big gold reflector and a big white light modifier (see the pics below.)

Side note: frequently kids are intrigued by the big gold reflector and want to pick it up and play with it. If your kid does this, that is totally, completely fine! These things are indestructible. I am absolutely not worried about a kid picking them up, they can’t hurt them.

Here’s some pics of me taken in 2020 and 2021.

This one is with my stepson, who sometimes comes out to the sunflowers to assist me. I was wearing Rocker 7 Farm Patch’s T-shirt that day. I like wearing it because it is such a bright yellow shirt that it makes it pretty easy for people to find me. Side bonus is some of the people working at Rocker 7 think I’m part of the crew and are chatty with me.

Here’s a video of me photographing my cousins at the end of their photo shoot in 2020. My bonus son is filming it and that’s who you hear talking. This is back in 2020. Wearing a mask and I had pink hair. Seeing this makes me want pink hair again.

I do not love this photo of me! This was taken after sessions were over one evening last year. I was walking by a woman and her daughter. She asked me to snap some pics of them and then asked if I wanted pics. Thinking of how dirty I was (can you see the dirt on my knees? haha) I started to say no, but then changed my mind because I want to remember this, no matter how dirty I was. Someday i need to get dressed up and have photos taken of me in the sunflowers!

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

Maricopa Sunflowers

My dear sweet little nephew Jonathan and I took off on an adventure to find sunflowers. I had seen people on Facebook post that there were sunflowers in Maricopa. So I did some internet searching and figured out where they might be.

First Jon and I went to In N Out, because this growing boy is always a little hungry. Usually the In N Out near us doesn’t take too long, but oh boy was it a long wait this time, so we got on the road to Maricopa a little later than I wanted to.

We made it to Maricopa and then I just had to guess which direction to drive on Ralston Road, which is where I thought maybe the sunflower fields were located. I drove south and drove all the way to where Ralston Road ends, but we didn’t find any fields of sunflowers. We did however find orchards of pecan trees, and a super overgrown abandoned plant nursery with huge palm trees in rows (the place looked haunted in the waning light of the day - I wish badly that I could wander through it -all the coolest places have No Trespassing signs, those signs are the bane of photographers everywhere.) We came across the Maha Ganapati Temple and fields of corn surrounded by wild sunflowers - those smaller sunflowers that grow more like bushes. The wild sunflowers were a good find, and I could see going back to use them as a photography backdrop.

When we couldn’t find the sunflowers, I turned around and went north on Ralston Road and just a few minutes before the sun disappeared behind the Palo Verde Mountains, we found the thick jungle of sunflowers. There were a few other people there taking photos. Jonathan and I got out of the car and started exploring. He was so curious and I think he looks so cute wandering around the rows. I’m so glad it was a long summer day and the sun sets so late and that we found the flowers just in time! Jon really did not want to go back to the car after it was too dark to see very well. I’d love to go back and see the sunflowers before they are harvested.

When these sunflowers are in bloom again, I am thinking of taking photos here. If you would like a sunflower portrait session here with me, fill out this form and I will email you to let you know of session times.