These are from Shaw Nature Reserve outside St. Louis. There isn't a whole lot of "primary" prairie left in the state, but Shaw and other sites have been trying to reconstitute a prairie ecology, complete with scheduled burns. Shaw has been at it for about 20 years and has excellent biodiversity, as it should have, being connected to a world-renowned research taxonomy center (Missouri Botanical Garden) with at least one scholar of regional plant diversity and with one or more practical ecologists on the ground supervising reconstitution and assisting in supervising research projects at Shaw.
The sunflowers were photographed at f/1.4 with the Sigma Art. OK, not a typical "landscape photograph", but yes, one can find uses for f/1.4 in nature photography. This lens is my "normal" (walkabout) lens. For some reason, I like 35mm now - I used to use 55mm as a walkabout lens in my film days.
