I’ve been taking walks lately, usually in the afternoon, sometimes just before dark. The lighting on these walks varies from direct sunlight to light that is reflected off the clouds, to the gold of sunset and the “crepuscular” light of twilight. Always a challenge to know how to shoot photos of some of the views that present themselves on the walks in the varying light.
Here are a few photos from the last week or so.
This madrone tree is a frequent subject – the trunks are smooth and shiny, and usually golden or white. In the glow of sunset they became infused with an inner light that played well against the darkening sky behind them, and the inadvertent moon peeking down on them.
The sky just kept getting darker on my walk, and the moon kept getting brighter. In one spot where the branches of the trees seemed to converge on the moon, I had to stop and shoot this.
Sunset comes at last and those hills not yet in shadow turn gold for a moment.
Next day
A few days later I went out to see if I could, finally, get a good shot of “Charlie Rock” — which has defied me thus far. Either I get the details of the rock, and the sky becomes completely washed out, or I get the details in the sky, and the rock is a black silhouette. (This could be solved pretty easily in Photoshop, but I wanted a “raw” photo, un-retouched.) This time I think I got it.
A few minutes before that, there appeared in the sky a meteorological phenomenon known as a “sun dog” – where a very bright spot appears in the sky – but it’s not the sun. The sun itself was about 30 degrees over in the sky, out of frame to the right of this photo.
The weather changed during my walk – from intermittent sunshine to full cloud cover. I could feel the rain coming in.
beautiful