Sundown at Church (and Palm Trees)

It's likely that I'm getting carried away with today's posting. I've been a little too busy lately, and so it's been a while since I last made a post. And here are a few (probably too many) shots from last Thursday night.

I had to be at Church that night for a meeting that was going to start at 7pm. And, wouldn't you know it -- the sun was going to go down at about 6:57!! What a (wonderful!!) coincidence.

I was actually going to grab a bite to eat and do a little shopping on my way to Church. But, when I noticed the sky, I bypassed that and made a mad dash straight to Church. I've been trying to get some great sunset shots around our Church for a long time now. But, to do that, you need to be there when the sun is going down. (Well, duh!) I now live about 40 miles from our Church, so being there at sundown is usually a little inconvenient. And, on those nights when I've needed to be there, we haven't had any really good sunsets. Until last Thursday.

We have several very tall palm trees around our Church property. And, palm trees make great silhouettes.



Here is what the buildings and trees look like. This shot is looking North-East, so the sun is behind me. This only shows some of the palm trees -- there are lots more around.



I parked my car and walked around the property at least five times. Every time around, the sun and clouds looked different, and so I took lots of pictures. In the following shots, I really like the look of the the bright spot being right behind the cross. It gives these shots a rather antique look.





And I kept walking around. And, I really love the palm trees.



Here is kind of a soft shot, with the bright spot of the sun out of the picture.



And then, here is a shot repositioning my self to place the sun so that it is shining through the bell tower. I really like the radials that the Fujifilm camera makes in these cases.



And again at a slightly wider angle ...



Here I am back around the front of the Church again. I think that due to the way the buildings face, sunrise pictures would look best. But, let's see, that would mean that I would have to get there before the sun comes up. And, remember that I live about an hour away. And the sun is now coming up at about 6am. And, if I left the house at 5am, I really wouldn't have much of an idea of what the sky was going to look like because it is still quite dark. Not to mention the fact that I'm still in bed at 5am. Oh well, I think that sunsets will just have to do. OK, maybe some day???



Back around the rear of the buildings again, and the sun is behind a cloud, shining out both from the top of the cloud and the bottom. Notice the birds in flight?



And, again the palm trees. Notice the cross?



Here is a rather simple shot that I really like, showing the cross against the pink clouds. Simple, but nice. This is taken from the rear of the Church, but, if I didn't tell you that, you probably would never know, even if you were a regular attender at our Church.



Here is a shot that took me by surprise. On another trip around the property, I came around front and noticed that the sunset was being reflected by the windows above the main entrance. No, that is not light coming from inside the Church, but from outside. Now, we may like to the think the the Light lives within the Church walls. But in reality, the Light comes from above, and actually lives within God's people!!



And one final shot from the rear. The sun has gone down, and there is a completely different look to the sky.



I'd like to think that these shots bring a little more praise and glory to God, the one who made it all. And, putting one of His houses of Worship into the pictures, just seems to add something.

By the way, if you would like to see all of the pictures from this night, please come and visit my web album at Sunset At CCN

The Amazing Polarizing Filter

I've made a discovery! Well, OK, somebody else made the discovery - I'm just a slow learner. Years ago, when I was actively using my 35 mm SLR film camera, I had a collection of lenses, and for each of them I purchased a protective filter - usually just a UV filter. The main purpose of keeping these filters on the lenses was to keep the lenses from getting scratched. After all, it'd be a lot less expensive to replace a filter, than to buy a whole new lens!

For my new Canon DSLR, I have only a single lens, and I really didn't want to see it getting scratched. So, I bought a pair of filters; one a UV filter, and the other a circular polarizer. I always keep one of these on the lens at all times. But, to be honest with you, I hadn't been able to see these filters make any difference in the pictures. That is until now.

Yes, of course, I'd read about the use of these filters, and how they are supposed to help landscape photos look better. I tried them, but couldn't see the difference.

The other night, I put the polarizer filter back on. I tried looking West toward the sunset (my usual subject) and rotated the filter, but again, couldn't see any difference. I tried looking in the opposite direction from the sun (East), but, again, no difference. Just for the heck of it, I tried looking North and South. And, there it was!

At sunrise or sunset, when looking perpendicular to the direction of the sunlight, rotating the polarizing filter makes the brightness of the sky change drastically, without having much affect on the brightness of other things, like clouds and cactus.

The following two shots were taken just a few seconds apart. I'm facing North in these shots. I had the camera on a tripod so as to not move it between the pictures. In the first shot, I rotated the polarizing filter to make the sky look as bright as popssible. I also adjusted the the exposure time so the exposure would be taken at about - 1/3 EV. In the second shot, I quickly rotated the polarizer to make the sky look as dark as possible, and re-adjusted the exposure time to again take the shot at about -1/3 EV.

Take a look at the two shots. Notice how in the first shot, the clouds look dark gray against the bright sky, and in the second the clouds look white against the dark sky? Although it doesn't show up very well in these two minature pictures, the desert forground shows up much better, too, in the second shot.





Alright, on to tonights sunset. When I first went out to start taking pictures, the following shot shows what I saw when looking East -- storm clouds in the desert.



And the following shows what was happening in the West.



After a while, the sun broke through an opening in the clouds. The next shot was taken with the Fujifilm camera. Note the radials out from the sun. I like them.



The next shot was taken right after the previous one was, but was taken with the Canon. Notice that the radials are absent. I don't have a good answer as to why this is, but I just remember the fact when I'm shooting. If I want to see the radials, I shoot with the Fujifilm camera. If I don't, I shoot with the Canon.



And finally, a few minutes later, here is what happened when the sun went down a little lower, below the bank of clouds.

Sundown at the Mining Camp Restaurant

I've got a lot of pictures to talk about tonight. But, first, I have an urgent question -- Does anybody know what this railroad building is (or used to be)? I've been driving by it for the last couple of years, and ever since I began taking sunset photos, I've been meaning to stop and shoot some pictures of this thing. I thought that it might be an interesting subject. But, you know how it goes -- when you are driving down the road, there is always somewhere more important that you need to be.

However, on this given night, when I was driving by, it was getting near sundown, so I finally forced myself to pullover and investigate. The more I looked at it, the more puzzled I became. I'd guess that it is about 25 to 30 feet in diameter, and about 30 or more feet tall. It has a doorway and a couple of windows. The windows have bars in them. Whatever used to installed in the middle of the floor is long gone.

There are apparently two chambers, one above the other. When I stood inside the lower chamber and looked at the roof, I could see that it is about at the halfway-up point. You can see a ring around the outside of the building where the division is located. What I found to be the strangest is that the roof of the lower chamber is domed. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to the upper chamber to see what it contained.

Ok, what is this thing?



This next shot shows the doorway, and to the right you can see one of the windows.



OK, enough of that. Now, on to the the Mining Camp Restaurant. This is a very famous destination here in the Phoenix area. It is nestled in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains. Since I moved to the Phoenix valley in 1967, and heard about this restaurant ever since I arrived, I just figured that it had always existed! Ha! The restaurant opened in 1961.

The strange thing is that it's now 42 years later, and I still had never been there. I'd always heard great things about the food and atmosphere, and always wanted to go, but just never seemed to make it. It's kind of like living in New York City but never having seen the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, or living in Arizona and never having seen the Grand Canyon. (Just kidding, of course I've seen the Grand Canyon. I've even hiked to the bottom of it a couple of times.)

My wife, Paula, and I decided that it was time to have dinner with Dave & Ann, friends of ours that we hadn't seen in a while. It just so happens that they were planning on spending a few nights in Apache Junction, which is located sort of at the mid-point between the places where be live. So, we thought we would eat in Apache Junction. But, where?? Well, of course, where else but the Mining Camp Restaurant. And, it's funny how dinner time happens somewhere near the time that the sun goes down.

After we had finished eating, and the girls continued talking about family, etc., Dave and I excused ourselves and escaped outside just before sunset. Dave has done a lot of professional photography and sold a lot of his pictures. Imagine this, though -- I was the only one to bring a camera. (I almost never go anywhere without my camera.) So, as Dave and I were talking, and he was giving me some very useful hints, I started taking pictures.

These first two shots show what meets you right outside the restaurant's entrance. Notice the Superstition Mountains in the immediate background?





And, here is to show you that we all observe the world around us differently. Dave asked if I would mind if he took a couple of shots with my camera. Here are a couple of the shot that he took. Notice that while I was looking at buildings, mountains, and eventually the setting sun, Dave focused in on something completely different -- something that I hadn't even seen!!

Take a look at the wagon wheels. There is something about wheels these that caught Dave's interest.



And here is probably the best shot of the whole night. There is some real artistic flare in this shot!! I just love it. Thanks, Dave!!



About this time, I looked up and saw the following. I usually keep track of the sun's and the moon's rise and set times. I knew that a near-full moon was going to be rising on this night, but in the excitement, had completely forgotten. So, I grabbed the camera and shot some moon shots. (Does that make sense?)



Yep, that's the moon rising right over the Superstition Mountains.



But, then of course, the sun was going down, and I was obligated to take some sunset pictures. Here is a view through a cactus.



And here is a view over the mountains to the west.



By the way, you can learn more about this famous restaurant at their web site at:
www.miningcamprestaurant.com.

Experiment With a Cell Phone Camera

Last night - no clouds - just orange! But, even then, I'm usually so intently focused on taking my sunset pictures, running around looking for the perfect composition, and racing the clock - since the whole thing really only lasts a few minutes - that I don't think of anything else.

I've been wondering just what I'd do if the sun was going down and I didn't have a camera with me. But, then it dawned on me that I always have my cell phone with me. I've been wanting to see how good a job my cell phone could do with a sunset, but, like I said, I'm usually too busy trying to take good pictures, to spend some of the available time taking shots with just a cell phone.

I have a new cell phone, a Motorola Hint, that has a 2-M pixel camera built in. It can take some very nice pictures of normal stuff, but I hadn't yet tried aiming it at the sun. So, since last night was just another one of those plain orange things, I'd decided to give it a go.

This first shot is how things looked with the Fujifilm camera (well, of course I had it with me - I always do!!). Like I said, it was just another plain orange sunset ...



Now, here is the same thing taken with the Hint. I notice several differences; The sky is more blue. The sky is brighter. The sun is a brighter spot.



More blue - because the phone camera's white balance was set to 'auto.' When I am shooting sunsets with my normal cameras, I set their white balance settings to 'sunset' or 'shade,' which enhances the reds. Therefore, the Fujifilm camera makes the sky look more purple, and the Hint makes it more blue.

Brighter - I'm just guessing here, that there are two things working here. One, the metering in the phone camera is full averaging, which, when shooting a very bright spot, like the sun (!!), causes the the bright spot to be overexposed, and the rest of the shot to be brighter. And two, perhaps the phone camera simply can't shoot fast enough to handle shooting the sun!

And that gets us to this morning. When I got up I looked out and saw clouds!!! So, I grabbed the Canon and went running. Here a couple of these shots.

Horray, June Has Begun!

Well, OK, June hasn't really begun yet. But, at least I'm done with the uploading of the May 2008 photos to my Picasa web albums. And, I've started going through the June pictures. And, June really started off with a very firey sky. June 1, 2008 was a very great night.

This first picture is a medium zoom shot, nicely showing the friendly Saguaro.



The second shot, is a wide shot, showing what the sky looked like before the sun went down. It was a very pretty sky.



But, here is what you could see if you zoomed in for a closer look at the clouds as the sun was disappearing below the horizon. The details in the clouds are really neat. But, there are far better pictures still to come from this night. However, I'm going to leave it at this for tonight's posting, because when I re-examined the pictures from this June night, I was reminded of just how great the night was. And, there are a lot more photos to describe and upload.

When the Wind Blows, It Gets Dusty!

This morning, on my way in to town for work, I stopped to take some picture of some Palo Verde trees. This being the time of year when they bloom, they become covered with tiny yellow blossoms. In the early morning light, they are just stunning. But first, I took a couple of shots of a yellow bush, and noticed the little winged guy shown here. So, I thought I'd give the macro mode a whirl. The shot turned out better than I expected.

I know that this has nothing to do with sunrises, but here's the little bee ...



And then I took several shots of the Palo Verde trees. You can see here just why I am so attracted to them in the morning light.



And that gets us to tonight. As I was leaving town, to begin my long trek back home, I realized that we had a lot of wind. The weather reports had been predicting this for the last couple of days. And, wind means at least one thing -- dust!!!

We didn't have a 'dust storm' -- and we here in the desert understand what a dust storm really is -- we just had dust. And dust means interesting sunsets. And that made me hopeful. In the shot below, the sun is just a big hazy bright spot. At this point in time I still didn't know that we had any clouds. Does it look like there are any clouds to you?



In this next shot, as the sun continued on its way down, I realized that there were a few clouds just above the horizon.



I've commented on this before, but as the sun goes lower, it begins to take on its normal appearance as a clearly defined circle again, as opposed to the hazy spot seen above.



Here is a shot that I think I like, with just half of the sun peeking around the cactus. And, with so much dust in the air, the sun is not overwhelmingly bright.



And, finally, the sun is beginning to disappear behind the final bank of clouds.

Walker Butte

Well, tonight was another night of playing 'catch-up.' These shots are from the last day of May, 2008. I've organized my Picasa web albums by month, and it always feels good to come to the end of another month. I picked out several of these pictures to blog about tonight, but I may not get the whole series uploaded to the web album until tomorrow. Oh well.

All of these pictures in tonights post feature the hill known as Walker Butte. As you can see, we are looking at the East side of the Butte here, with the sun going down on the West side (funny how that works, huh?). You certainly can't tell from any of these pictures, but on the South side of this hill, near the top, is a large letter 'C' which represents the town of Coolidge. If you check this out with Google Earth, you can actually see the 'C' on the Butte. My wife was actually raised in Coolidge.

This first shot is a medium zoom image, showing the haziness of the sun behind the clouds.



Next, I've zoomed way out for a very wide shot that shows a rather tangled mess of contrails. Every once in a while, I just have to ask myself where all these planes are going, anyway?



The next two shots are very similar. The first one is just shortly before the sun had gone completely behind the hill, and in the next one, the sun is gone. I like both of these shots, and I especially like the tiny little Saguaro cactus on the side of the hill. If you compare the shot above to the two below, you can see just what an 18x optical zoom can do. These shots were take using the Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd camera. Compared with a 35 mm film camera and lense, this would be equivalent to a zoom lense with a range of about 18 to 320 mm.





And then, there was the unusual. A little while later, one of the patches of cloud/contrail above the Butte, began to glow in an unusal rectangular shape. You might think that I 'Photo Shopped' this in to this shot, but that is not the case. In fact, I have several shots in this series that shows this interresting shape.



And last night, didn't I mention something about the green sky? I hope that the tiny version of this final picture does this justice, because there are large areas of the sky that are very green indeed.