Great sunsets aren't all that common along the river. I've said that before—but it's true, and I feel better if I whine about it a bit every so often. We're tucked low, behind a fairly high hill to the west. It's all but dark down here long before sunset up there.
Sometimes, though, the late-in-the-day sky colors up—blazing orange or pink, lavender, magenta, turquoise, gold. Gaudy great swathes of incredible hues which change by the moment and seem determined to make up for some of those sunsets we don't see.
Yesterday's evening sky delivered such a show. We were just about to sit down, share a bowl of popcorn, and watch TV. Then I saw the sky beyond the high, great-room windows, and grabbed my Nikon. What you see is straight from the camera, point and shoot, full-frame, no manipulation other than removing a couple of dust spots.
Spectacular, huh? However, 90 seconds after I recorded this image, the color washed out into a sort of pastel rosy-yellow. Sunsets and painted skies wait for no one.
I got lucky…though I lost out on the first round of popcorn.
12 comments:
Grizz: lovely! A gorgeous sunset or sunrise is a gift whenever and wherever you find it.
Now that's a sky I could parachute into!breathtaking!
Hi Grizz
glorious image - your eye for nature's gifts is right on.
Love Gail
peace....
Breathtaking.
I love a good sunset. And I understand the effect of location. Sometimes, I see a good sunset here, but we have too many interferring roof lines for me to get a good full shot.
I have another association with sunset photos. My parents were missionaries, and it was standard fare for every missionary talk to end (of course with slides) with a slide of a gorgeous African sunset. And the text would say--"as the sun sets on Africa..."
Carolyn H…
I'm an unrepentant sucker for sunsets and sunrises, too. And I'm never too busy to take a least a few moments—if not minutes!—to gape at one like it was the first I'd ever seen.
AfromTO said...
Grand lighting for a grand entrance!
Gail said...
Kind of a no brainer when it comes to a spectacular natural sight…and about that easy to photograph. But you had to be there right that minute because a minute before and a minute after, it didn't look this way. I'm glad I was there, got the shot, and had this image to share with you.
KGMom said...
I know all about those incredible skies and awful locations when it comes to photography. Just this evening we came out of a nearby store and saw an amazing sunset—like a vast lavender-blue river in a hillocky field of pink-gold. I had only a cell phone camera, but I would have tried a few shots with that…except for the maze of overhead wires, fixtures, and standards. So I just looked and edited all the clutter out in my mind.
Hey, I've been to those lectures, and remember that ending-slide sunset shot—right before the plate got passed with those envelopes for donations, which had my father leaning a bit to the side so he could reach back and extract his wallet from his hip pocket. I was always kinda bummed because here I'd sat through the presentation with only minimal squirming and being shushed by Mom and Dad…and confound it, the thing was supposed to be about Africa, home of Tarzan and Jungle Jim and all that wonderful blood and danger and neat adventure stuff, and I'd been sorely shortchanged when it came to lions and leopards and Cape buffalo—oh, my!
Boy, isn't that the truth! I've learned over the years that once I see that color in the sky, I'd best RUN for it... as is really is so fleeting. Stunning view from your lens my friend. :c)
Jayne…
Hey, I've missed the shot completely just changing lenses or fiddling with camera settings. Sometimes the real peak only lasts literally a handful of seconds. I can't tell you the number of times I've been driving along a rural or backcountry road about sunset—intending to set up and photograph, mind you—saw a nice sunset developing, and blew it because I didn't park and get going fast enough, or I delayed too long looking for that ideal foreground feature—old tree, old barn, old fisherman—to build the shot around.
Oddly, I seldon mess up dawn shoots…I guess because I'm generally already where I want to be, camera ready, foreground object chosen, and all I have to do is just wait for the light to get better and better and better, shooting throughout. Though again, that absolute peak moment is usually just that, a moment; the rising sun waits for no one.
Now this is a great sunset. It brought to mind that song, "Big Red Sun" (Lucinda Williams).
I like point and shoot photos best personally.
Rubye Jack…
Huh, forgot about that LW song. On one of her first two or three albums, if I remember right, and still in my CDs somewhere. I may go dig it out. Kinda a downer bluesy country thing. Can't say it reminds me of the sunset, though, except the name. Sometimes, for all the fancy gear experience, and technical expertise, almost any camera will deliver. The old newsman's dictum of "f-8 and be there!" can, for about half the shots, anyway, when using today's digital cameras, be "point-and-shoot and be there!" Sunsets are easy and always great.
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