I was watching the news and they
reported there was a haze in the air caused by Canadian wildfire smoke in the
upper atmosphere. The jet stream was sending the smoke to the New England area
so they said there may be enhanced views of the sunset. Pam and I decided that we would go to Federal
Hill in Hollis to see if we could see a nice sunset.
We Visited my parents first and by the time we left, we knew we
wouldn’t make it to Federal Hill before the sun went down. There were no clouds
in the sky so nothing for the sun to reflect on other than the smoke. At that point, the sky was a little pink but
nothing unusual.
While driving I noticed the sun starting to turn pink. It was strange because you could look right
at it because of the smoke. I needed an
unobstructed view, so I quickly swung around and stopped at the Airport.
Here are a couple of the pictures I took of the sun. I did not use any filters. The wildfire smoke filtered the sun. When taking pictures of a bright object it
creates underexposed surroundings.
After taking a couple pictures we continue to Federal Hill. From taking sunset pictures, the best sky colors often occur after the sun has gone down.
We had a couple of good spots to stop at. Unfortunately, with no clouds in the sky, there
wasn’t much color, so it was a bust.
As we headed home the moon rose and had an interesting color from
the smoke in the air so we stopped at the Woodmont barn.
I did not have my tripod which was unfortunate. I jumped out of the Jeep and leaned up
against the barn for support. I wasn’t really happy with the pictures I was
taking as it was hard to keep my camera still while zoomed out with a slow
shutter speed. My thought … “If you can’t beat them, join them” … So, I slowed the shutter speed down a bit more
and played with intentional camera movement. Something my wife doesn’t like!
I have taken night-time time-lapse pictures of the moon
before. Because the moon is a sphere it
creates tubes not just flat lines of light.
With the shutter open you cannot see the subject (in this case the moon)
through the viewfinder so keeping the subject in the frame is an experiment. Also, the slower you move the camera, the brighter
the moon appears. If you stop long enough, you get more of the image. It is fun
experimenting with moving the camera fast, slow, stopping, and starting to see what kind of picture you create.
Enough playing … We headed for home after a couple of pictures.
