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Last night I was shooting a beautiful sunset from my balcony at home. Storm clouds drifted overhead at the right altitude to attract that beautiful light from the setting sun. I made a number of wide shots, capturing the scene as a whole, but found myself picking out cloud shapes and colours, in ever smaller areas as the light faded.
I always have my 70 - 200 mm telephoto for sunset shoots, because isolating a spot of light and making it the focus of your shot often works tremendously well. Don't get me wrong, a wide angle sunset is always stunning but the view from my balcony, though nice, is not landscape worthy. I shot an almost perfect donut cloud, and another that resembled an explosion, but as the light faded toward the blue hour I spotted this 'mayfly' coming in to land behind a foreground storm. I couldn't believe my luck and fired off just two frames before it changed to more of a blob and was lost. I really like this shot. The clouds in the foreground framing the only splash of colour remaining as it sits within the lighter blue/grey background, with the 'wings' glowing in the fading light as the body arcs toward a resting place. So, this week is a different sort of artistic interpretation for the blog, isn't it great how many different ways we can find beauty with a camera in our hands. Alberta, Canada has begun the slow road to recovery from the Covid nightmare. The local and provincial parks are now open to all, and I took the opportunity to escape to my favourite sunset location with my lovely wife, by way of celebration. It was a real surprise to find we had the whole area to ourselves. Perhaps the length of the day (sunset is now just after 9 pm) put off many who might otherwise make the trip. Perhaps they didn't notice the opening of the parks as it wasn't exactly "shouted from the rooftops", perhaps they just weren't as fed up of their home and garden as I, whatever their reasoning, I am so pleased that they let us have the place to ourselves.
My wife and I had a lovely evening snack of sultana filled danish pasties, and hot tea, as we watched the early spring sunshine illuminate the mountains opposite. Low cloud to the west reduced the impact of the sunset but the wonderfully calm water of the lower lake reflected what colour there was and it was beautiful to observe. The trip wasn't about photography, it was about getting out there again and enjoying an evening in the mountains with my wife. As we watched the last light fall on those spectacular monoliths opposite, a Great Horned Owl broke the silence with his easily identifiable call which reverberated around the still waters and completed the evening perfectly. It feels so incredibly good to be out again, hopefully there will be more frequent posts now as I return to my landscape pursuits in earnest. I wish you all a speedy return to normality and the joys of your chosen genre of photography. |
Chris WaltersYou can read more about me in the 'about' section in the menu above, on the homepage, or by clicking here
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