Snohomish County

Sunday Sunset

I spent Friday and Saturday night’s out with my girlfriend chasing sunset in the Cascades. In both cases, the sunset’s came up short and meekly went away. It should come as NO surprise that Sunday evening, while sitting at the computer working on something, my girlfriend came up to me and asked, “Steve, do you have your camera? Come quick!..”

Sure enough, I get to the back porch to see an enormous radii of god rays and layers upon layers of puffy clouds. Ah yes- the sunset I wanted came a day late. Monroe gets some fantastic sunset light but (honestly) doesn’t have much going for it for foreground compositions. The best thing I could do was walk over to the ball fields behind Frank Wagner Elementary and maximize the sky in my photos. Enjoy!..

Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012
Sunset over Monroe, Washington, 7/8/2012

Cloudrise

I tried to shoot sunrise yesterday from Everett but things didn’t work out as well as I would have hoped. Skies were partly cloudy but those cloudy parts were east towards the mountains. Despite the presence of higher clouds, the sunlight never reflected off of them so that’s why I’m naming this “cloudrise” instead of sunrise! Making the best of it, I did notice some more interesting cloud formations towards the southeast of my location..

Cascade ridgeline between a gap in the clouds before sunrise
Ridges, clouds, and the building sunrise
Cloud patterns near the Cascades
Sunrise builds with passing clouds
Cloud patterns as sunrise approaches
Cloud patterns as sunrise approaches
First light over Three Fingers

Quick sunrise

Sometimes a sunrise slowly builds to a glorious finale and sometimes it’s a flash in the pan like when you turn a stereo on and forget the volume is at full. A couple of days ago, the sunrise was the latter.

The color just started as I was a few minutes away from my location and it was really going as I parked and ran with my gear. I literally only had two minutes of “show” and that was enough time to shoot four bracketed series. And then it was over.

Crazy!

Sunrise over the Cascade Mountains
Sunrise over the Cascade Mountains
Sunrise over the Cascade Mountains

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