The smoke and haze this winter has pretty much ruined the chance for getting suitable mountain panoramas but luckily the same problem has been making for some great sunsets. I don’t like shooting sunsets all the time because they can quickly get cliché and boring but there is definitely a time and place for them. I was thinking, there is only one time of year when the sun is setting at this angle, right over the best part of the Sangre and I don’t want to miss it and have to think about it for an entire year!
ome promising looking clouds and some free time the other night worked together to provide the opportunity so I headed out towards Victor to my favorite Sangre De Cristo viewing spot. Well before the sun began approaching the horizon I could detect some promising color in the sky and I knew it was going to be a good night. When the sun finally began to set the color didn't disappoint. As the sun went down and the colors changed I moved around along the viewing area to get some different angles and some different exposures. When the sun was far enough gone to make sure I didn't burn out my sensor, I tried some shots directly into the light, rendering some interesting lens flare, which won't be useful as stock but might make an artistic print for someone who likes that effect.
Now in Photoshop working on the images I remember one reason why I don't like shooting sunsets! Even using all my tricks, sometimes there remains some unsightly Chromatic Aberration which requires a good amount of tedious hand painting to correct. Thought I would use my best one so far and also one with lens flare in it for this article. As always these images are for sale on my website, which you can view by pressing the links in the menu. In addition to the sunset images, there were a couple of abandoned mines in that looked kind of interesting in the light and I was hoping to have them on my site as well, but a plethora of power lines that were not visible in the evening light have invaded the pictures beyond repair. Oh well, maybe I will have to just go in search of a less public mine for those shots.
