A monsoon sunset down in Casa Grande
I’ve learned a bit about good sunset pictures in the last year. Normally, a nice silhouette of a sunset doesn’t work unless you have some kind of iconic or amazing structure on the horizon. A beautiful sunset photograph usually has some sort of interesting foreground element to go with it…be it a lake, pond, rocks, building, whatever.
When I am out stormchasing, I never know where I’m are going to be. I just end up where the storms and clouds are. So when you start seeing a sunset forming like the one above and you’re driving down the highway at 85mph, you have precious little time to find a spot that offers up some decent composition to go with the brilliance happening on the horizon. Sometimes the most beautiful moment of a sunset lasts for less than a minute, so the setup needs to happen NOW.
All that building up to say that I don’t think the foreground elements in this photo are anything to write home about, but it’s amazing what you CAN find when you are frantically searching for a spot when the sun is about to disappear. Especially if you’ve never been around this area before. You race down a road, see a field, look for something, ANYTHING interesting and then bolt out there, get the tripod up, make sure your settings are good and snap away.
I do love the tree here and some of the elements of decay around…a discarded pipe close to the horizon, a barbed wire stake just standing there by itself for no reason…the deadness of the desert.
Technical jargon: Six brackets, Photomatix, CS5 and some noise reduction, etc.
stunning! well done. i love that rush you get when nature’s clock is counting down and you just have to get that shot in! this is great.
I like how the elements of the photo contrast with the beauty of the sunset.
And I understand what you mean by “beautiful sunset photograph usually has some sort of interesting foreground element to go with it” – but many times I just get so awed by the sunset that I’m okay with grabbing a photo of all the colors and beauty in the sunset alone.
That’s amazing. Surreal, even.
Looks like the field just north of the high school? Amazing shot!
Its aight. Ive seen better