Tag Archives: sunset

Holiday Twinkle

My neighborhood is filled with light this time of the year. Icicle lights hang from eves, nets of lights hang on shrubs, and I even noticed some new light sources projecting light on the walls of houses and words onto a garage.

Tonight, with peppermint hot chocolate in hand, we set off for a nighttime walk around the neighborhood to appreciate the twinkle of lights decorating the neighbors’ houses. With only my iPhone as camera, I tried my hand at some night photography. It’s pretty clear that I still have some work to do at improving in this area of photography.

I loved these lanterns hanging from a tree. They seem to be a string of colored lights arranged in chicken wire.

I had fun playing around with this snowman. Using the app Big Lens, I was able to focus on the snowman and blur the background and then use a filter called snow to create a chilling effect! (And trust me, it’s not snowing here!)

Here’s a version without the snow effect.

There are lots of colorful lights hanging from bushes, wrapped around palm trees, and outlining doorways. Some flash, some blink, and some stay lit steadily.

There are elaborate displays…some reminiscent of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…and others more serene like this one with two deer in lights.

And as much as I enjoy these twinkling holiday lights, I find myself drawn to nature’s twinkle of sun on water. I am a sucker for a beautiful sunset…and take too many photos of them. This one from earlier this week was particularly beautiful with the clouds hunched along the horizon.

And I love the twinkle of the clouds reflected in the still water of the lagoon after yesterday’s storm. If you look closely you can see a ripple of the breeze along the water.

As we head towards our shortest day, light becomes the focus of holiday celebrations. I notice myself seeking out the light…looking for sunrises and sunsets, holiday light displays and candlelight. There is something both calming and energizing about the light of late fall as we celebrate winter holidays.

What light draws your attention? Where do you find the twinkle of light in your life?

Weekly Photo Challenge: On a Whim

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Do you speak in images? Enjoy taking photos to document your experiences or just to express what you notice in the world? Love to share them with others? Welcome to the weekly photo challenge! I post a new challenge each week…check in regularly and join the fun!

I am loving that photography has given me permission to follow my whims…to make spur of the moment decisions that lead me to interesting pictures. As I left the university this afternoon I noticed hang gliders over the cliffs. Even though I had an appointment, I decided to take a few minutes for a detour to the nearby glider port. The sun was descending and the gliders were soaring above the cliffs…posing in the setting sun. This particular shot is unedited and unfiltered.

I also noticed this other kind of glider…almost like wings. This guy soared bird-like into the light.

Sometimes letting the lawn get a bit overgrown in a good thing…at least for the weed-loving photographer in me. My eye was drawn to this particular dandelion puff…and on a whim I started snapping shots of it, trying to capture its perfect spherical shape.

A new grocery store opened near my house. It’s huge…and apparently creating vibrant vegetable displays is part of their grand opening business plan. I found myself snapping photos of the veggies, drawn by the colorful colors and shapes. Will they continue to create these colorful pepper arrangements?

And last weekend was perfect for low-tide walking. On Saturday it was so low that I was seeing parts of the reef that are not usually not visible. On a whim I was taking pictures of the exposed reefs. Later I noticed the ways the ripples in the water played with the contours of the reef, creating interesting textures.

And who can resist a sunset shot with a lifeguard tower in the foreground?

As much as I love the beach at low tide, sometimes I find myself there at high tide…and what a difference it makes! The wide beach of Saturday afternoon was replaced by a very narrow beach on Sunday morning. But that doesn’t keep people from enjoying the water, sun and sand…and it doesn’t keep me from taking a shot on a whim!

What do you take pictures of on a whim? Do you go out of your way to photograph something that seems interesting? Do you stop on your way to work, on your way home to take a photo or two or three? Maybe this is your week to follow some of those whims…and see what you find!

You can post your photo alone or along with some words: commentary, a story, a poem…maybe even a song! I love to study the photographs that others’ take and think about how I can use a technique, an angle, or their inspiration to try something new in my own photography. (I love a great mentor text…or mentor photo, in this case!)

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #onawhim for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

Where will your whims take you? What will you find when you give yourself permission to veer from your usual paths or timetables? I can’t wait to see what you find on a whim through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Time Change

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I’m not a fan of the time change in the fall. I mean, I love getting the bonus hour…for sleep, walking, exploration, photography…but I hate getting home when it is dark, especially when it isn’t even 5pm! But in this first week of the time change, I have found some interesting images BECAUSE of the time change.

I’ve been trying to squeeze more time for physical exercise into my life…and this week I’ve been carrying my gym shoes so I can take the time for a walk at the end of the day. Earlier this week I had a late meeting near UCSD, so when I finished my regular work day I put my gym shoes on and took a nice long walk around the campus. As the sun dipped lower and lower into the sky, I loved watching the way it caressed the buildings and played hide and seek through the trees.

In this image, the low sun found its way through the tall buildings, lighting up the midsection of the eucalyptus trees in front of them.

In this shot, the harsh setting sun created a flare of light as I shot directly into it. Using an app to convert it to black and white created a neat effect with the light.

The Geisel Library at UCSD is such an architecturally interesting building that I couldn’t resist framing some shots. You can see the sun setting behind the building in this shot focused toward the west. Again, I changed it to black and white, creating lines of light framing the building.

And as I walked I noticed the moon rising. I chased it through the trees, tracking it down when it hid behind buildings. And as I circled back toward the library, I found the moon sitting on its shoulder with the colorful afterglow of sunset in the background. This image is almost otherworldly!

Yesterday I was at school late, after all, it is report card season. And it’s hard to stay focused on work as the classroom gets darker and darker as the sun sets. About a half hour after the sunset, my teaching partner and I headed out…and looked out toward the end of the hall and saw the most incredible colors in the sky. Brilliant oranges sat on the deep turquoise sea, and even as I took the time to snap a few images I knew that my camera would not do justice to the intensity of the colors.

And here is one more, looking across the field at the baseball backstop with the ocean just beyond.

How has the time change impacted you? What are you seeing and capturing in your photos that are because of the time change? My pictures happen to take place as the sun went down, but I can imagine that the morning light is also different, changing what you see.

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #timechange for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

How did you take advantage of your extra hour? What are you noticing now that our days are shorter and our nights longer? I look forward to seeing the time change through your lens!

As the Sun Descends

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The days are shorter and finally cooler. The crisp of fall rides the air currents and shoes and socks are beginning to replace weekend flip flops. Rain (finally!) pelted the parched ground overnight and clouds still gather, hunched over the horizon, adding texture to our often cloudless, pure blue skies.

As the sun continued its descent, the seabirds played on the breeze, cruising the currents, darting and dancing with seeming delight at the change in the weather.

Dipping into the sea, the sun takes the day away and lets night in. The smell of bonfires mixes with the briny sea air, the glow of the fires becomes visible as the cloak of darkness wraps the sky.

I pull my sweatshirt hood up, zip to my chin, and snuggle close to my honey. It’s cold…at least by San Diego standards. Finishing its descent, the sun leaves a glow on the horizon and signals time to head home to its watchers. And tonight will also mark our time change, falling back from daylight savings time to standard time. We’ll have short days and long nights to look forward to for the next couple of months. Welcome fall…and daylight’s descent toward winter.

In Flight and On the Ground: A Photo Dialogue

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I’ve been thinking a lot about reading images and the stories held and told…both with and without words. This week at the Daily Post, the weekly photo challenge is titled Dialogue–with an invitation to post two pictures that open up new meaning when they are in dialogue with each other.

I love this idea of photographs in dialogue and thinking about how the images might speak to each other and the viewer in ways that create new understandings and opportunities for meaning making. I spent time yesterday evening on the beach…the perfect way to cool off and relax after a wonderful and exhausting first week with my students.

I often walk on the beach either in the morning or afternoon when the sun is higher and often more harsh. The evening sun was soft, bringing out reflections and colors that I don’t often photograph. As the day cooled and tide receded, the birds were active–running after tidbits of food, poking long beaks deep into the soft sand. I snapped many shots of sandpipers in action, playing with the light and shadows.

I love the way this sandpiper seems to be walking between the clouds as they reflect on the shoreline, an echo of the sky overhead.

And then as I thought about what other image to pair with the one above I was drawn to this image that I took of a hang glider in the setting sun.

Taken within minutes of each other, each photo tells its own story. Together, what do they say to you? I’d love to know what you hear in the dialogue between the photos.

An Unusual Point of View

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Yesterday I wrote a post about playing with frames where I was looking for different ways to photograph the ordinary in my life. This evening I headed off to the beach (again) to cool off and enjoy the sunset. And with my iPhone camera in hand I was again looking for new ways to explore the beach photographically.

When I sat down to write this post, I wondered about my topic. Would I write about my school day? Would I participate in Five Minute Friday and write about red? I took a quick look at my blog reader and saw today’s Friday Weekly Photo Challenge on The Daily Post…and discovered that this week’s challenge is just what I have been working at! The challenge is titled, “An Unusual Point of View” and talks about trying new ways to take photos of ordinary (or popular) views.

Back to the beach. The tide was ultra low when we arrived and the seabirds were feasting in the wet sand. I love sandpipers and their gently curved beaks that poke deep in the wet sand pulling up tiny shellfish and crabs. I was stalking this pair as they searched the shore and shot this photo, capturing the reflection of the cliffs in the wet sand. Can you spot my pair of sandpipers?

As the sun moved lower on the horizon, I took a few shots and then felt that they were too much like the sunset photos I took last week. How could I frame them differently? I noticed that through my sunglasses the view looks different than it does when I look without them. I decided to use my sunglasses as both a frame and filter for a picture of the setting sun.

And then as the sun sat down into the water, I tried using the people in the water as features of my photos. I tried some fishermen, some surfers…and then captured this pair which I am titling, Into the Sunset.

I love stretching and trying out new strategies. The experimentation adds a new dimension to my view of the world and has me alert to novel opportunities for photos. I look forward to seeing what others produce with their unusual points of view. What does an unusual point of view do to your craft?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea

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Today was one of those rare hot, sultry days in our coastal community…and it’s the first week of school. I love our old fashioned school with high ceilings, big windows…and no air conditioning! By the time I left work today I felt hot and soggy–and home was also hot and un-airconditioned.

The perfect answer to almost anything in my world is a walk on the beach. Mostly I walk at the beach on weekend mornings or afternoons. But today, a Friday evening sunset walk was the perfect way to cool off and the perfect end to the week. I’d forgotten how the sun setting changes the light and creates softness and shimmers, reflections and incredible colors.

A feeling of peacefulness comes over me as I listen to the waves crash and smell the salty air. I managed to catch this seagull in flight as it headed over the breakers. There is nothing like the sea to sooth away the stresses of the week and help me feel centered and calm.

Where is your peaceful place? What soothes and calms you at the end of your work week?