The Other Sunset

[flashback]

Dan, I don't have a problem with someone doing an edit on one of my images when it works to better explain one's thoughts and possibly work to better my shot. Feel free to post your edit. I've tried it but maybe seeing it independent of my action can make it easier for me to contemplate.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, so the take away point here is...do what everybody else doesn't do. Or maybe more simply, look the other way.

Agree 100%. I find that photographers are a bit two-dimensional in their shooting habits. Sometimes looking up or down gets you an amazing shot everyone else has missed. I'm not only suggesting shooting to the east, I've gotten some great lighting shooting to the north or south during sunsets. That can accentuate the long shadows and the subject can get hit by both the orange / red / yellow light from the setting sun as well as the blue coming down from above.

I have in the past checked the eastern sky while watching a sunset and it always seemed to be blase. This particular time the eastern sky just seemed amazing. Clearly it was a combination of atmospheric events and timing. And yes, having a distant enough horizon does work in one's favor.

I wish there was some way of predicting these gorgeous sunsets, but they one really has to be lucky as sometimes they really only put on a show for a few minutes and then the sunlight disappears behind a cloud.

Regarding the blue hour, I'm going to have to go back and look at my sunset folder and see how late some of my shots were but, I'm suspecting I called it quits somewhere between the sun disappearing and the mosquitoes appearing.

DEET can be my best friend on those occasions, and you are quite right, they do show up at dusk. Up where I live they are awful all through June and into July, but the numbers are way down by August. September and October are great (although I have gotten a few bites in September).