Sunset in the Shenandoah

If you know me you know I’m a sucker for sunsets.

If you know I like sunsets then you probably also know also like sunrises but I can’t seem to get up early enough to see them. Getting up early is not something I generally do on my own. I usually arrive there from the day before.

It would be way more convenient if the sun would rise around 10am. If it did, I could get up, get some tea, check my e-mail, pay some bills THEN look out the window. But, lately it’s happening around 5:30am. Who has time for that?!

OK, back to the sunset yesterday.

I’ve posted the following photo on Instagram and Instagram does what Instagram does best with photography … completely screw it up. How can you take a photo like this with such nice detail and screw it up?

Well, start with making it a 1 by 1 square. Then take out all of the detail that tells the story. Then make people put their words around it to explain what is going on. Then claim it’s the only way to get your story out.

Shenandoah Sunset from Hogback Overlook on Skyline Drive

I like the above photograph but it’s not my favorite. I took a few others that I liked equally as well. Here is one:

Shenandoah sunset from Hogback Overlook

In the photo above I was getting ready to take pictures right when the sun was going over the mountain. My goal in the photographs that follow is to tell the sunset story with some depth of the mountains in front of it.

At this time of the “golden hour” just before the sun sets light springs up from everywhere. It’s at this time of the day that I go from being isolated in my environment to where people start to show up all around me to take in the experience. While I like a good sunset others clearly do as well.

My favorite photos of the landscape are panoramas. The following shot is actually three shots that I’ve sewn together to make a single image. I do it in a way that you can not tell where one photo ends and the other begins. Over the years, I’ve obtain the skill and software to pull it off well. It’s been a long road trying to figure out how to do this. My journey in panoramas started in the 1980’s. It’s only been recently that I’ve figured out how to do it in a way that looks good to me.

Note that the photo below is only a thumbnail … you will need to click the photo to get the detailed panorama shot I mention.

The following photography is one I would actually print and hang on my own wall. After all, that is what photography is for me. It doesn’t matter to me that you might not like it. It matters a lot if I like it. The older I get the more I enjoy my own work. Why it took me so long to get here I really do not know.

If you do click the link below make sure you zoom in and look at the detail. And then realize I still have the original that has 10 times the detail in it. That photo shows exactly what I saw with my own eyes yesterday. I have to say, it’s pretty cool.

Enjoy my photograph. Or not. 😉

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