Summer Solstice

From the balcony of my home in Alberta, Canada, I see little of the sunset for much of the year. But springtime brings the sun on it's long, slow, northern journey to a point beyond the foothills within reach of my camera.  I am fortunate to see many great sunsets from the balcony, but because I do, I photograph few of them.  

But, as the sun reached it's northern maximum this week, it put on another wonderful display and I couldn't resist making a few images of the spectacular skies above the foothills. I made this simple three shot panorama with my 100 - 400 mm lens, at 135 mm handheld, though I do use a deck pillar to support my elbows. Aperture is f/5.6 and ISO at 200. I kept only a small portion of the foothills using the extended rule of thirds principle to give more of the frame to the sky, exaggerating the scale. 

The colours move wonderfully from blue, through red to yellow, before contrasting with the black silhouette of the mountains beneath. The red diagonal from lower left to upper right carries us through the  image rather than it being staged in straight lines, and the dark upper, works well with the silhouetted lower portion to form a letterbox vignette across the whole frame. 

Admittedly, it's not an image for the portfolio but it's a wonderful memory of the summer solstice 2020 and an evening with my wife watching the sunset, what could be better.