The state flower of Kansas is the sunflower. There are many varieties of sunflower that range in color from bright sunny yellow to deep crimson red. This is somewhere in-between.

I wanted to try a different vantage point than just straight-on photography. After all, there are plenty of photos of sunflowers in the world. I like this cropped effect, showing the leaves in the background and the pretty periwinkle blue, which compliments the orange and yellow petals.

I took this in the summer of 2007 at my friend Tina's house. The sky was actually more gray than this, but the flower was very bright looking so I gave the illusion of a sunny day by adding more blue to the sky in Photoshop. Other than that, the flower is untouched.

This was taken with my Nikon Coolpix digital camera on a partly cloudy day.