I’ve always had a love affair with landscapes & sunsets. I think it REALLY got energized when I lived in Monterey, California for a year. I used to spend time in Carmel at the Friends of Photography building .. I don’t remember whether it was theirs permanently or what .. At several showings, I got to meet Ansel Adams and see some of his work. IT BLEW ME AWAY! Nothing came close. Since that time, I’ve learned everything I could and taken opportunities everywhere I’ve traveled to shoot more sunsets and landscapes.
I try to get an opportunity to shoot interesting sunsets & landscapes as often as I can, though it’s harder now that I’m disabled. Here’s one taken in 2010 in Birch Bay, Washington:
I don’t believe that the photograph is complete in the camera. It needs careful work to realize the vision I have when I took the picture, and sometimes, it takes more work when I discover another picture, maybe better or maybe just as good but different with a different feeling about it. In the Birch Bay photograph, I really wanted a more panoramic shot, but I was constrained by buildings on both sides. When I moved up closer ton the shoreline, I lost the mood from the buildings framing the sunset, so I took the picture with left & right framing and cropped it vertically to get the effect I wanted. Some enhancement of the colors and darkening of the image provided the view I liked.
I used to think that Ansel Adams did everything in his camera, but as I’ve read his stuff more and more carefully, I learned that just isn’t true. A lot of people go wrong on this, but as I read Adams, what I’ve learned about him was that 1) he started by visualizing the picture as he wanted it, I imagine that he SAW the image in his mind’s eye, then 2) he did whatever was needed to capture an image that was the foundation for the picture he visualized, then 3) he would process his negatives carefully to preserve what he captured & bring it as close to fruition as possible, THEN 4) he would apply his skill as a master darkroom craftsman to bring the print to the point where it matches his vision. Contrary to what I’ve heard some people say, Adams was an end-to-end master craftsman and EVERY step was employed to realize the vision of the print. Further, every step was part of the craft AND the art of what he did.
I’ve shot sunsets & landscapes in lots of unlikely locations, and lots of likely ones too for that matter, but often, the unlikely ones seem to have a more interesting story. In this one, the roofs of my apartment complex to the west and the trees provided an interesting ‘horizon’ for this sunset:
I darkened this for more of a silhouette and tweaked the color saturation, but I’m very pleased with the results.
