Wednesday, October 7, 2009

195/365 Near-harvest soybeans

I've been itching to get a close-up photo of some near-harvest soybeans for a couple weeks.

On Sunday morning, the light was finally perfect, I had the right camera in hand, and I made my move.

I've never considered soybeans to be a terribly attractive plant or crop. You see lots of people decorating for fall with dried cornstalks around their houses, but you never (or rarely) see dried soybeans used in such a way.

The remaining stalk is just a bare stick, and the soybean pods grow fairly sparsley on the plant.

But I considered that to be my challenge: how to make the dried soybean a cool photo?

You may disagree, but I'm quite happy with my final result.

Living in the Midwest, I find it easy to take soybean fields for granted as just an average, everyday crop. But all you have to do is look at the list of ways soy can be used, and it blows me away. It's an amazingly versatile product.

From now on, I'll try to appreciate my neighbor soybeans a little more.

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens, 1/500s, f/4 at ISO 100 at about 10:30 a.m.

2 comments:

  1. I do love the soybeans, Mandy. I don't see very many fields down here these days ... it's more like living in the middle of the woods. :) Though cotton flowers are beautiful - my first really close-up with them was, unfortunately, cameraless. Next season ...

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  2. I've never seen cotton fields growing but would love to! I'm sure that's like the soybean of the south -- you get used to it and no longer really appreciate its beauty.

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