As Evening Falls: An Ongoing Journey

Just after sunset, at Richmond Beach, in Shoreline, WA

I have loved shooting images at sunset and beyond, into the deep evening, utilizing long exposure techniques, for about a year now. My journey along this path continues as I begin to put together images for a book project. My working title is, "As Evening Falls..." My goal is to begin with images taken at sunset, and to move gradually into early evening and then full nighttime. 

Recently, I spent a late afternoon and evening at Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, experimenting with different ideas and gradations of light, until it was deep night, lit only by the full moon, and the occasional beach bonfire. 

Here are some of those images:

This was an experiment in using a scene of dynamic negative space, along
with very colorful positive space...

A vertical version of this same experiment. I love
the bold negative shapes of the trees, especially
the tracery of the leaves and the shapes of the tree
trunks, against the brilliance of the sunset....

No one can resist photographing a sailboat on the water, and that
includes me. The surface texture and color of the water and its magical
reflectivity are irresistible to me at this time of day...

The figure in the foreground could be any of us,
gazing ahead or behind, to the water. Gazing at water
seems to be a magical and meditative activity for humans.
In staring at the water in front of us,  our gaze often
shifts inward at the same time. We are in our element,
for we are made of water. This is the Elixir of Life. 

A few weeks ago, I also stepped out with my camera gear, into a night of thunder, lightning, and torrential rain, determined to photograph forked lightning. Alas, the lightning was masked from direct view, by another layer of low-lying clouds. 

However, by the time I arrived, and looked around, I didn't feel I could leave, so I set up my tripod, my plastic bag to protect my camera, and proceeded to start shooting, utilizing long exposure techniques. I am amazed by the quality of stillness and peace in the resulting images. I remember how ironically peaceful I felt standing there at Green Lake at 10 o'clock that night, with thunder booming in different directions, the cloud cover lighting up with quick pulses of lightning, and the soft quacking of drifting ducks to keep me company.

Here are a few images from that evening...

West side of Green Lake, the swimming area behind the old Bath House
Theater, now the Seattle Public Theater. The uneven lighting of the cloud
cover shows where lightning was flashing above it..

West side of Green Lake, looking to the north end, from the swimming area
behind the old Bath House Theater. I wanted to capture the peaceful but
slightly eerie effect of the silhouettes of the ducks that ceaselessly drift
back and forth near the shore.