I Never Get Tired of Sunsets

A friend of mine once pointed out that I’m always noticing the sky – and he’s right! He also pointed out that I always drop my cell phone – an equally accurate observation (thanks, Keyur, for noticing all my best traits). The cell phone thing is just lack of grace, but the sky… I don’t know, I just love all things atmospheric. Ok, maybe not all things, but I can spend a ridiculous amount of time gazing at the clouds, stars, sunrise/sunset, etc.   Am I’m ok with that.

Today I decided I wanted to watch the sunset from Memorial Park in Sanford, which is located on the south side of Lake Monroe. I woke James up from his cat nap, and loaded my camera equipment into the car. On the way there we stopped at 7-Eleven for a hazelnut iced coffee (a.k.a. liquid crack) and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

We got a good parking spot at Memorial Park and found a place to sit on the seawall with an unobstructed view. The concrete wall was warm from the sun but the air was not too hot – just perfect. The wind was blowing to the east which worked out great to keep my crazy hair out of my face. I got my camera ready and cracked open my Cheerios. Aaaah, this is the good life.

Here’s a picture of the sun well before it hit the horizon. This photo doesn’t have any hardware or software filters applied; isn’t the color magnificent? I’m viewing it on my laptop which has a very dull display and it even looks good on here.

Here’s the camera data for the first photo:

After the sun dropped down we stuck around to watch the clouds change colors. Here’s a shot of the sky at its pinkest – this time I slowed the shutter down a bit to pick up the colors in lower light. Again, no software or hardware filters on this.

I put the camera in full-auto mode just to see if the captures were better, but they weren’t. I think I’m actually starting to get used to playing with the shutter speed and aperture settings! Now if I could just get out there and shoot more photos I bet I’d get faster at selecting the right settings – right now it takes forever. Good thing the sun sets slowly (and daily)!