Into The Sunset....

Hi everyone, guess where I've been? I just got back from sunny Florida where it's HOT, HOT, HOT! WOWZA! I am almost burnt to a crisp! LOL! Being in Florida was a bit strange this past visit. I am absolutely nuts about the beach to the point that others think I am strange for being this passionate about a body of water. LOL! For some reason I did not get that excited this time. I guess I had too many things on my mind to enjoy the beauty around me. Of course, regardless of how down I was feeling, I could not get this close to the beach and not take pictures! That would be unheard of for moi! LOL! I took a bunch of pictures but today I am only sharing my sunset pictures with you. I will share the others in the days to come. I knew I wanted to capture some beautiful sunsets while at the beach so I did some research on taking great pictures of sunsets and sunrise before my trip. From what I gathered, the same rules apply for both sunset and sunrise. One photographer, Jeff Wignall, joked that getting good pictures of sunrise/sunset was a matter of "f/8 and being there." He stated that this scenery is so inherently pretty that nature will do all the work for you. I took his advice to heart. For most of these shots I used the kit lens that came with the camera. It's the 18-55 mm lens. In a couple of shots I did attach the 70-300mm telephoto lens. I have been asked a lot about the filters I used for these shots. The truth is I did not use any filters. These pictures are all natural. What you see below is exactly what I saw. That is what the sunset looked like. It is so beautiful, and the colors are so rich, that using filters did not even cross my mind. I set my aperture at f/8 and got my camera to zero with my shutter speed and just snapped away! Here are some of the images I was able to capture.

We were at Sand Key Park, south of Clearwater Beach. The sun set from 8:00 to 8:35 pm. So I found a comfy spot in the sand and started snapping. I was so happy when this pirate ship sailed right into the sunset creating such a beautiful scene. There are two distracting elements to the front of this image that I will Photoshop out if I ever decide to do anything with this picture. But for the purpose of this post, I left all the pictures untouched so you can see nature's beauty in its raw form without any computerized enhancements.

I have to give credit to my husband for the next two pictures. He pointed out how beautiful the sun looked as it peeked out from behind the clouds and so I turned my camera on and grabbed this shot.


I then zoomed in on the sky to get a closer shot of the sun and the clouds.


This picture below was taken the following day from Pier 60. We were told that this was the place to go for beautiful shots of the sunset. I did not think the scenery could get any prettier than what we experienced the night before but I was curious to find out. On this particular night the view from Pier 60 was plain. It was still beautiful but the sky was very clear and so was the water. Literally all of my sunset pictures from that night were some version of what you see below.

Luckily, a sailboat sailed across the sunset to add some interest to the scene but it was so close to us that it appeared very large in the picture. I would have preferred it be a a little bit off in the distance like the pirate ship from the night before.

This picture was taken the night before. See how much more is going on in the sky? I think the clouds in the picture below enhances the beauty of this picture by adding a nice backdrop and also adding texture.

This man, searching for metal, added a nice silhouette to the front of this picture. I think he also balances this shot. I tried to shoot the sun off center as well just to change up the composition. It is so tempting with sunsets to shoot a bulls-eye shot of the sun each time.

This woman was pulling this boy out of the water and the expressions on their faces were priceless.

Here is a shot of the pirate ship just when the sun started setting.

I thought these shots were pretty. They were taken after the sun had gone down and it was essentially dark on the pier. I must say, I need a whole lot more practice with my night time photography. I was spilling a few choice words at the camera because it was just not cooperating with me. LOL! I realize though that for night time photography, or photography in very low light settings like this, I need to fork out the money for a lens with a very small aperture like a "f/1.4" lens. These are expensive but the small aperture allows you to shoot in dark settings as it allows more light into the camera.

I just love the green reflection in the water.

Well that's all I have for today. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Until next time, keep on snappin'!