I don’t exactly know where to classify this place as. Some call it the Toowoomba Sunflower Field, some call it the Cambooya Sunflower patch, Either one is fine by me. Technically, we (as in Steph and I) found the sunflower field in a little place called Nobby, which is further down the road from Cambooya. There used to be loads in Cambooya but I was told by a friend who has to travel via that area to go to work that they didn’t plant them this year.
Bummer.
No fret, we just thought we’d take a drive and see what else we could find…we thought of turning back over five times but God must’ve been driving because I just followed the road until we got to a railway crossing. Across the road way up in the countryside was something yellow.
“It couldn’t be”, I thought…”Let’s check it out anyway!”. Steph also didn’t think that it could’ve been a sunflower field. We turned the car around and tried to find a way in that direction. We hit a couple of dead ends but eventually we were greeted with a huge sunflower field!
I’m talking BIG. It extends all the way to the horizon. Here’s a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
That not enough for you? hmm..OK, imagine this: You are now seeing the image above in reality. Now turn 90 degrees to your left and you’re looking down the field from an elevated position…and this is what you see:
Yup. Thats a heck of a lot of sunflowers. Just as I was getting my gear out of the car the owner of the field happened to walk by with his dog. I greeted him and he let me go crazy so I had myself a photo-frenzy. I didn’t have my camera out yet so I didn’t get a shot of him. Next time I’ll be sure to bring the polaroid so I can give him a little something for his generosity.
Oh, by the way, be prepared to have your screen blasted with all sorts of shades of yellow. I love composing shots by colour. However, something funny happened while I was taking pictures of the sunflowers. Check out the image below and tell me whether or not its edited…
Am I seeing things or does it look like an HDR image? (for the noobs out there who do not know HDR is High Dynamic Range. What is it? Google is your friend). It looked the same way on the camera screen which I thought was weird. This is actually straight from camera. No post processing, no photoshop, no nothing! Even looking at it now I can’t help but think how “edited” it looks…am I right?
Also, this wasn’t a one off thing. Check out the following six images which were all taken straight from camera with no post processing whatsoever. Only adjustments made (if any) are to crop and/or straighten the horizon.
Is that weird or what? Those of you who follow me know that I like to get the shot right in camera but even I’m amazed at this! In the interest of full disclosure I will share some of my settings with those who are interested. Camera on variable aperture/shutter speeds depending on the shot (Duh!). All shot on “more vivid” picture mode, cloudy WB, and with a 0.9 (3x) Graduated Neutral Density filter (cheapo Tian Ya brand but works great!). Obviously a wide angle was used – in this case a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 mostly at 10mm. Any explaination people?!
Moving on, we also brought along our little guinea pig, Shybrow who kind of got high from all that fresh vegetation.
Shybrow is no little piggie, shes a big fat piggie and shes still growing but at around six months old and almost too big to hold her comfortable in one hand, shes no match for the sheer monstrosity that is a sunflower. I mean that thing could literally eat her up!
Man, I could almost see this shot advertising for something…for example:
How’s that? haha…fortunately that not the extent of my graphic design abilities but thats all I could think of in two minutes. Ideally, the sky would be a gorgeous deep blue but I’ll have to go back again in the near future to get that shot. More about revisiting this place at the end of the post.
Heres a shot that was inspired by another photo I saw somewhere on the internet but I can’t remember where. If I find it I’ll credit it.
Sunflowers are one of the few “photogenic” flowers. I say so because of their beautiful texture. Not to say that other flowers aren’t great but a macro lens and a sunflower would really produce some amazing results. I didn’t bring one along as it was a cloudy day and I knew it would be too windy to take macro shots (maybe next time I can steal a flower and photograph it at home?) For now, the crappy Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 will have to do.
Heres a great little pano I shot:
Altogether we were there for over an hour. Brandon called me and said that it was raining in Toowoomba so we packed up and left. Looking up there was a flock of birds. I had my telephoto lens on so I took a couple of shots of them. Nothing impressive but I sort of like this picture:
Would have loved to stay til sunset…but that was hours away. Perhaps next time. For now I can only imagine…
As I previously mentioned, I will be going back there to get some shots with blue sky instead of a cloudy one. If you don’t already know, this area has been in a 6 year drought and having clouds is a rarity so I took the opportunity to make the most of it. I will be going back on a nice clear summer day to get some different perspectives. I’ll probably go down again in a week or so. Anyone interested in joining me? let me know in the comments!
Til next time, good bye and God bless!
Good pictures , Jiaren, thanks for sharing these. ^^
Woooah!!! This is the sunflower farm I wanted to visit for sooooooooo long!!!
So nice eh and shybrow is so cute!
Thanks Willy! Good luck in ur exam!
Christina, lets go together next time! I plan on going again very soon…otherwise they’re gonna die soon…
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn’t matter much to me.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Sunflower Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Sunflower Fields forever.
…obviously not William Shakespeare.
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love your sunflower pics
when is it the best time in the year to capture these sunflowers?? Im from sydney and would love to travel up. regards JP
Hey JP, the best time would be the beginning of summer. Around November-December period. We had a trip to Queen Mary Falls not long ago (currently at the front page of this blog) and passed many sunflower fields along the way…still in full bloom! I went back to the filed in this post to try get some shots with some deep blue sky but unfortunately they were all drying out already.
Amazing blog, I love Photogrpahy
I found your article from google… can you teach me how you did that?
Yup, basically just an Ultra Wide Angle lens with some graduated neutral density filters…
Thanks for the comment!
Looks like a fantastic place it is on my list, hoping it’s still there! I have added the link to my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/gclocations
Hi Mon, I replied to your comment on f/book…
I like the pictures of the sunflowers makes me feel warm and happy!! ^^”
Great work Jiaren!
The Guinea pig is very cute. Nice juxtapostion.
Hello, just wondering on directions how to get to this field? It is beautiful and my partner and I are hoping to head to Toowoomba (we’re from Brisbane) for this easter weekend. Thanks
Hi, is awesome, we wish to go to this place, can you give me some information, when is the best time to go and what is the actual address. And your photo are wonderful. thank you for sharing
Hi! I’m a film student and am also in desperate need to find out the address of this sunflower field, as well as the date you went and the time of year when they’re in full bloom. It would be greatly appreciated, thank you so much!
You take a good photo jiarenlau
Hi Natalie,
Sorry for the late reply. I found this particular field in Nobby…it was around Nov-Dec if I remember correctly. We went back around February and most were harvested by then.
If you’re coming from Tooowoomba, follow the directions south to Queen Mary Falls. There will be a turn off the main highway to Nobby. Follow that straight road all the way to the end and you’ll see this field of gold in the distance although, ike I said, by Feb most of these are gone. However, if you continue heading down South towards Queen Mary Falls, you’ll see a few of these fields along the road. They’re about 40ish minutes south of Toowoomba…
We were just lucky the owner of this field was outside and kindly let us run around his fields!
that was a stunning shots…is there anymore sunflower on july?thanks..
Hi Jiaren :),
I LOVE your pictures and i just have to ask, which month did you drive up to the sunflower field ? My friend is coming over from Sydney and would be wonderful if I could take her there :). I was planning to go there next month, do you reckon the flowers would still be in season?
thank you so much
Hi Thania,
Thanks for the kind words, you might get lucky but from experience right now is the best time if not a little too late. I used to go around Christmas as they tend to cut them for harvest towards the end of summer. If you have a whole day I certainly recommend you spend a day at Queen Mary Falls. There are a few more albeit smaller sunflower fields in that direction further away from Toowoomba. If you do, make sure you do the brown falls trek. Its absolutely fantastic!
Hi, I’m taking my Nana to these fields in December hopefully, and was wondering whether you could tell me the directions coming from Gold Coast way??
Thanks, your photos are amazing x
Hi my anniversary is on the 1st November and was planning to go check it out then. Will there be Sunflowers to see then?
Yeah, there should be plenty.
Hi Jiaren, I have been searching for sunflower fields to travel to and bumped into your great article. (Btw, Shybrow is really cute:D)
I am from Hong Kong and I would like to know if there would be blooming sunflowers around Christmas? and if yes, how could I get there and get permission to walk around the fields?
Thanks!!:)
Hi There, Just wondering when the best time to go in the year is? Really want to go !
I’ll be going to Toowoomba this week. Do you think the sunflowers are still blossoming at this time??
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