The Gift that Kept On Giving

Last night, I went. The theme of the evening was working on some compositional ideas that I've tried before, either this summer or others, and wanted to see if I could do better.

Choosing yesterday evening in particular was a bit of a risk - there were quite a few clouds in the western sky. Clouds can go either way. Some nights, they add color and interest to the sky, and on the best of evenings add a colorful second act to the sunset after the sun itself is already below the horizon. Other nights, the clouds obscure the sunset or turn it a milky and unphotogenic color.

Of course, all clouds are not created equal - altocumulus, for instance, will often give you an interesting sunset, whereas altostratus usually will not. There are never any guarantees, though - meaning a sunset trip with clouds in the sky is inherently risky. Last night, though, I hit the proverbial jackpot, and the clouds both made the sunset itself more interesting and created a colorful second act as they reflected gold and red from the already-set sun.

The first is one with a wave crashing in the foreground, and I like it better than other images I've done along these lines because of the rich blue color I was able to capture in the wave, and because the wave appears fairly close in the frame. I'd need to brighten the image somewhat, but that's certainly surmountable in this case. I achieved the partial blur of the water with a shutter speed of 1/5 second.

Below are some examples of another compositional idea I've done before, focusing on a blade of grass with my macro lens and having an out-of-focus sunrise or sunset behind it. The three below are my best results to date along these lines in terms of color and composition. The clouds darkened the sky and added some blue and violet tones, making these a lot more moody than my previous efforts.

At first, I was trying this shot with a narrow aperture to get some detail in the water. There were some annoyances, however - such as flare, trouble getting good sharpness with a longer shutter speed, etc. On the spur of the moment, I changed course and decided to try the shot with the widest aperture my camera would muster (f/3.8 at this focusing distance). The shot ended up a lot more interesting this way, as the sun became quite large in the frame.

(I had the hair-brained scheme that it might be fun to try printing and displaying these all together, side-by-side, as a sort of time-lapse. I'd have to decide, of course, if they're distinct enough from one another to make it work. I'd also have to crop them all to the same dimensions, but I think that could be done.)