This is the third year that I have photographed at the Uesugi Farms Pumpkin Patch in San Martin. I think I have enough pumpkin photos, but when I go back I see everything a little differently. This year the photography club had an hour and a half access before the park opened and the swarm of school children arrived. The overcast sky provided ideal, diffused light for macro shots of Indian corn husks.
The clouds eventually departed to leave a clear blue sky as a perfect backdrop for the orange pumpkins. 
When the sun appeared, so did the bees (and the wind). Because of their constant movement, bees are tough enough to photograph. When the flower is swaying, it is doubly difficult. I took a lot of wind-blurred photos with bee blobs. To catch this shot, I backed off the telephoto a bit to get more light and a faster shutter speed. The bees are laden with pollen.
This bee has more clarity because the sunflower was hanging low and out of the wind, and the bee stayed put. This must have been his first flower of the day because he is not covered in pollen.
I purposefully over exposed this back-lit flower because I wanted to keep detail in the dark center. In Lightroom I pulled a little color out of the white-washed petals, but kept the high key effect.
The clouds eventually departed to leave a clear blue sky as a perfect backdrop for the orange pumpkins. 
When the sun appeared, so did the bees (and the wind). Because of their constant movement, bees are tough enough to photograph. When the flower is swaying, it is doubly difficult. I took a lot of wind-blurred photos with bee blobs. To catch this shot, I backed off the telephoto a bit to get more light and a faster shutter speed. The bees are laden with pollen.
This bee has more clarity because the sunflower was hanging low and out of the wind, and the bee stayed put. This must have been his first flower of the day because he is not covered in pollen. 
If you have been following my blog, you may remember that last winter Buzz and Woody frolicked in the Virginia snow. (http://visual-journey.blogspot.com/2010/12/playing-in-snow.html) On this day they played in the pumpkin patch, clambering over the fancy gourds.
Cinderella seems to have stayed out past her midnight curfew.
"The Three Gourdos"
Maybe I was the one who was playing with the fancy gourds.You can see many more pumpkin patch photos on my
Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suebrazelton/
