There was quite a show at sunset today, as you will see below. In a rare moment of convergence, I happened
to be ready for it. I got a chance to run out in the late afternoon and headed over to the Arlington side of the lakes to
see what was going on. I wanted to check out conservation park, actually. And that was fine, but I didn't see enough potential
to sit out sunset from that side of the lake, so I went back over to the Medford side.
I had taken a few basic landscape nature type shots when the sunset started to kick in. At that point, I abandoned
what I was doing to take advantage of this light:
These are the hills in Arlington above the lower Mystic lake. This is actually quite a bit above the level
of the lake - it's probably 60 feet up a hill. But I tried to use the trees to frame the sunset to make it work. The clouds
and the color was intense.
Now one thing that a lot of people probably don't do enough of when confronted with a great sunset is looking
down. In fact, I spent almost as much time shooting the water as I did the clouds. Because the geometry of my location was
such that the water picked and reflected the sunset beautifully.
Using the tree tactic again in a different location, I find a composition of color stratification...
And last but not least, the reason why I practice panning. I had missed getting some flying birds earlier
in the evening. It's long been my goal to get a bird silhouetted against a sunset in a panned shot. In this case, I got a
little closer to that goal. The sunset was a bit passed its prime at this point.
I can't help but notice what church signboards say now that I've been following the New England Baptist Church (great
sign coming later today in the Halloween edition, by the way). The Open Door Baptist Church in Belmont usually has good stuff.
They are right on a major intersection (Route 60/Pleasant Street & Rt. 2) and usually have thought-provoking signs without
so much controversy. But there's a special place for them in my portfolio of signs after pulling off this one. Now this is
a church sign.
