Ennis Bluebonnets 2017: Second Sunrise

Do you know what's better than shooting one sunrise? Shooting two! And thanks to some low clouds, quick thinking, and fortuitous locations, I got to do just that when I drove down to Ennis a few weekends ago.

I'd marked two possible sunrise spots on my map, and they were only a couple of miles apart.  While the colors in the sky were spectacular at my first stop, it didn't really have any bluebonnets.  So after the sun broke the horizon I packed up, jumped in the car, and headed to my other option to see what it had to offer.

That turned out to be a very solid decision.

This was my third year driving down to Ennis to shoot the bluebonnets, and this field along FM 1181 southeast of Telico was the biggest and densest I'd ever seen.  It was simply breathtaking to see how much area the wildflowers covered.

I was surprised (but not displeased) to be one of just three photographers here, too.  The field along Sugar Ridge Road that I shot the last two years has had dozens of folks, which can create some composition challenges.  No such issues this morning.

I also seemed to have timed my visit just about at peak bloom.  The flowers had beautiful color, and hadn't been overtaken by grasses yet.

My biggest concern when I shoot a scene like this is how to do it justice.  The answer is usually that I can't; there's just too much to try and capture.  So the question then shifts to what do I want to try and emphasize.  Here, that became the scope.  How could I provide a sense of just how many wildflowers were here?

This slightly higher vantage point seems to provide a better idea of scale than the lower one.  But I prefer the vibrancy of the previous shot.  This is all nitpicking, of course.  God already did the hard work by putting this all together.  As long as I point my camera in the right direction and click the shutter, it's pretty hard to screw this up!