Arc of Glory – Another epic Arizona sunset
(please click on the photo for a larger view)
I always hear from people that Arizona seems to have the best sunsets. I actually like a lot of the ones I see shot in Florida by a few photogs I know (example).
But I tend to agree about Arizona. Of course, I’m biased and also haven’t lived anywhere else *grin*
Last night was another one of those. I hadn’t been out in awhile to shoot the sunset, and that was mostly because we just haven’t had much in the way of clouds and weather lately. But this week a giant cold front moves through the southwest and the sky last night ended up being spectacular.
Usually I love it when the sun sets and then illuminates the underbelly of the cloudy sky, but this ended up being a little different. The fluffy clouds didn’t get lit up much, but the high clouds behind it exploded in a glorious arc of color, which ended up almost as a backlight to the forward, lower-lying clouds. It made for a spectacular sight. In some ways, it almost looks like a massive nuclear explosion on the horizon that is slowly expanding.
Technically, this is a merge of two, 3-shot HDRs. I worked on it late last night, and in the morning hours I wonder if I could have straightened the horizon a little more on the left. I may tweak it later before it hits the gallery.
This was shot just about half a mile from my house. Drove down a dirt road lined with tall weeds to find a nice desert shrub to help compose the foreground.
Superb! I need to go back to Arizona.
Awesome Mike! I love your hdr images! Very well done!
beautiful!
….you are getting too good at this stuff….
Thanks so much everyone…the sunset did the real work, I was just there to see it 🙂
Beautiful shot! I live in Chicago, but was fortunate to visit Arizona in ’99. I loved it there.
Great photo!
Thank you Eddi!
Great shot! Wonderful colors… beautiful!