Thousands of sunflowers grow together, look the same and behave the same. The field seems like a solid yellow carpet from afar, but if you drive closer, you can see that each flower is unique. My idea was to take a photo emphasizing this union of similar, but different entities. An additional element in this photo was the starry sky with the Milky Way. After all, it isn't easy to imagine something more united than a cluster of stars. They are all millions of kilometers apart, but we see and perceive them together.

Did you know that finding and photographing a field of sunflowers can be a challenging task? I don't know about other places, but where I live, sunflowers are never grown two years in a row in the same field. This is done because sunflowers deplete the soil a lot, and the area must be allowed to rest. Therefore, the field has to be changed to a new location every year. That's what happened this time.

I had to drive 250 kilometers from my home through wet areas after rain. There are no roads there – only a track from tractors and combines, which is not very passable after rain, even for an SUV. I was alone in the car, and my biggest fear was that I would get stuck in a puddle and I would have to spend the night in a field among these huge flowers, 100 kilometers from the city. Luckily, I managed to find the field before the car got stuck! To my great surprise, I discovered that sunflowers do not close at night and do not lower their heads! They stand with their heads up and look in one direction, as if, all together, they are one entity.

Many people believe that sunflowers turn to follow the sun and "fall asleep" at night. But only young and light flowers behave this way. Old plants no longer have the strength for such exercises, and therefore, they almost always face east. Because of the assumed behavior of sunflowers, so many people think that this photo is a collage. But the picture is real. It's just that these flowers had "insomnia." I was lucky to find them and to spend a few hours during this night in the field to take this photo.

CURATOR NOTE

Fables, wives' tales, misconceptions... I would have never thought to venture into a field of sunflowers to photograph them at night. But, here they are standing together, looking to the east, awaiting sunrise. It is incredible that it is not a collage. I didn’t realize this until I read the description.

THE ARTIST

Elena Liseykina is a travel and landscape photographer and she has been taking photos for about 15 years. She is also a mathematician-programmer and has worked for more than ten years for one of the largest IT companies. To learn photography, she woke up at 5am, practiced photography for several hours, and then went to work. Additionally, she did photography when she traveled for vacation and on weekends. As she began to develop as a photographer, she entered photo contests and started a blog about travel and photography. Then one day, she got a call from the Fujifilm company who made her an offer to become their ambassador. She had been combining work as a programmer in the office, photography, travel, and the blog for more than ten years. Two years ago, she decided to leave her office job and become a full-time photographer. She has never regretted this decision, although it was a frightening thing to do.