Honorable Mention / 2021 / Special / Smartphone Photography

• Photographer
  Susan Petrie, United States

For two years, I drove an hour to work across a section of Route 20, from Albany, NY to Pittsfield, MA. Route 20 is a coast-to-coast road that winds through many small towns. Because I didn't like my job, I often delayed by stopping to take pictures. One morning, the road was dense with fog and I came upon an unexpected scene, a field of dead sunflowers. Sunflowers, a symbol of brilliance and hope, have a second life when no one is looking. As I walked among them, I felt I was trespassing, intruding on the privacy of dying. The sense of weeping defeat was overwhelming.