Sunset

R and I went over to Oxfordshire today, to visit my sister, brother-in-law and nephews. The sun shone, we were treated to a wonderful meal, and several hours of competitive talking passed in a flash. I'd probably still be sitting there chatting now, if R hadn't realised that it was nearly 8pm and we needed be getting on the road back home.

At which point a minor blip panic ensued, because I'd only taken a couple of photos during the afternoon and suspected (correctly, as it turned out) that they might not be all that. So I borrowed a bloom from a jug of sunflowers in the kitchen, popped it down on the garden table in the light of the setting sun, and rattled off a few frames from different angles.

I love sunflowers, but don't ever find them particularly easy to shoot, and this certainly isn't going to win me IGPOTY - but it has got something about it that I like. I put the heavy matte on it in processing to try to make it more sunsetty, if that makes any kind of sense - I wanted the feel of the light fading and the shadows deepening. I'm quite tempted to post it in a photography group of which I'm a member, where someone yesterday went off on a passive-aggressive rant about over-processing....