Agritopia sunflowers

I met up with Alice and her Little Sister Lila at the gorgeous sunflower fields at Agritopia one early evening in late July, after Arizona got a ton of summer rain. I know Alice from playing ultimate frisbee at local pick up games. It was the first time I had met Lila, but now I follow her on social media and know that she does roller derby (which seems very cool to me!)

We were warned to be careful because the farm fields were flooded and muddy due to recent monsoon storms. If you scroll down a little you will see Sarah, who I think is a farm manager at Agritopia, holding a huge bouquet of sunflowers that she had just cut. She shared all those gorgeous sunflowers with Alice and Lila and me.

Thanks for meeting up with me for sunflower photos, Alice and Lila!

Want sunflower photos for yourself? I am always on the look out for sunflower fields, and right now I have sessions available in October 2022 at Rocker 7 Farm Patch in Buckeye, Arizona. More info about that here: SUNFLOWER PHOTOS AT ROCKER 7 FARM.

Photography equipment used:

Canon 5D, Canon 1.2 prime lens, 43 inch gold reflector, Adobe Photoshop for editing.

Are you looking for a photographer so that you can get photos at Agritopia? All year long photographers and their clients can walk around Agritopia to get photos, after buying a location permit. Agritopia also gives photographers a chance to purchase permits to photograph in their peach orchards. Those are usually available in September, October, and November and sometimes in the spring. Permits for the pink peach blossoms are available in February. Some years permits are available for the sunflower fields.

Fill out this form if you would like me to photograph you at Agritopia!

Lauren Lee Mural

In Arizona, we have soooo many talented muralists and gorgeous murals. I am absolutely amazed sometimes at the talent of muralists that exists here in the Phoenix area. By being involved in downtown Phoenix, I have gotten to know a lot of the muralists, or at least become a little bit acquainted with them. At least enough to follow them on Facebook and see what they are up to!

In 2012, I met Lauren Lee when she was painting for the Phoenix Festival of the Arts, organized by Hugo Medina and Joseph Benesh. I already knew of Lauren Lee as the painter of the Three Birds mural on the greenHaus building on Roosevelt Row. Since then, she has painted so many other enchanting murals. Some of them are in Tempe, and since I live in Tempe, I will purposely drive home down streets where I know they exist in order to see them. One of my absolute favorites is Don’t Wake the Dreamer on Hardy near 5th Street.

When I met up with Eliza, pictured here, and her mom, we first met on the Arizona State University campus. I love doing photos there because you get a great variety of backgrounds with nature and cool looking buildings, and it’s never crowded on the weekends. It’s got a lot going for it, but it’s not very colorful. I wanted Eliza to have some images with bright color, so right before sunset, we headed to see Don’t Wake the Dreamer. Scroll down to the end of these images to see the soft, blurry, dreamy last photos. It was getting very dark at this point, so we didn’t have much light, hence: soft, dreamy, blurry.

Which seems pretty much perfect! Eliza was finishing up one part of her life and on to the next. I hope her dreams for this next part of her life come true!

Are you looking for high school or college grad senior photos? You graduating people are one of my absolute favorite subjects to photograph! We go all over and have a little adventure and get tons of good stuff.

Contact me here if you are looking for a photographer! Tell me a little bit about what you are looking for!

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.

Sparklers Portraits

Wendi and Rai came over to my house in Tempe, and I took photos of them with sparklers. I had hung up a seamless paper backdrop from Savage Universal against my garage. And over that I hung up rainbow streamers from Party City.

It felt like such a fun and festive thing to do just a few days before the 4th of July. It was so much fun to see Wendi and to meet her husband. Wendi is a midwife and Rai creates custom shoes, amongst other things. They frequently have music nights at their home in Tempe. I keep wanting to go, I have to really try to go next time a music night happens!

I feel like everyone should have photos of themselves with sparklers for the 4th of July.

Contact me if you want sparklers portraits!