I happened to look out the window at about 7:30 last evening, and the light across the yard sucked me out and sent me down to the ocean. I did a loop around the Kennebunk beaches, and found myself at the confluence of the Mousam and Back Creek just at sunset. The holiday weekend folk were packing and leaving the beach, so I was actually able to park and watch the sunset.

It was not dark enough for the Nikon’s Night Landscape mode to work, but this shot uses the Backlight/HDR mode…it is three shots assembled in camera for extended dynamic range. I have been disappointed with the effect during daylight, but here it was just the thing to capture a relatively natural balance between the bright colored sky and the landscape. Too often sunset images catch the spectacular sky against a dark, or even completely black, foreground…which is never the way we actually see it in nature. In reality there is always considerable light on the foreground until well after the sun is completely set. Trying to bring up the foreground in post processing sometimes helps, but at the cost of considerable noise in the image, and effort with the software.

This is a closer shot from the same location, a few moments later, using a longer zoom setting for framing.

I love it that the camera was able to maintain detail even in the trees against the sun. Both of these will benefit from a larger view by clicking the image to open the Smugmug lightboox.

I will admit to being (maybe too) interested in the technique and technology that make such shots possible with the cameras we have today…but, of course, the hardware and software only have value for the results they produce. That more natural balance of light over the landscape, with the full intensity of the sunset sky above, is worth capturing because it makes the image more than sunset shot…it makes it, as I see it, an opportunity for the viewer to more completely participate in the event itself…to be there, where the photographer stood…and experience the sunset as the photographer experienced it. And this is, again, I think, a good thing…a value…and what photography can, at its best, accomplish.

These images are not photography at its best, of course, but they are satisfying attempts to capture the feeling of the place and time. I think. Sunset over Back Creek, July 2nd, 2011.

We are, perhaps, already in Sunday territory in that discussion, but one of the things I love most about photography is that opportunity to share each other’s vision and experience…to share worlds…and what I see most clearly, as I experience the growing community of photography on flickr and facebook and everywhere on the web today, is that the sense of what is beautiful, admirable, interesting, sad, touching, valuable, and even humorous…what is worth taking a picture of…extends across all cultures and races…is something we, as children of the creator…share, no matter where we were born or how we were raised. Oh, I do occasionally find a photographer who is into a slice of the world I don’t particularly want to look at, but it is rare, and even so, I can generally see the value he or she saw, even if it is not my value. And, many times, I am simply stunned by what others see and capture, because it could so easily have been what I saw, if I had been there. I so I would like to think anyway.

Nikon Coolpix P500 in Backlight/HDR mode. Nominal exposure info: 1) 53mm equivalent field of view, f4.4 @ 1/250 @ ISO 160, 2) 175mm @ f5.4 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160.

Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and intensity. 1) was cropped slightly for composition.