NedL
Subscriber
This post is just a place to grumble. Feel free to ignore or commiserate.
A couple years ago, I was standing at a pullout overlooking Anza Borrego in Southern California with the sun setting over the mountains behind me. Anza Borrego is in a broad flat plain, and I watched the shadow of the ridge behind me race across the plain at an almost unbelievable speed. The shadow moved miles in seconds. It was an amazing sight that I'll never forget.
Fast forward a couple years. The past few weeks I've been driving by a tractor parked in the middle of a wide flat neatly plowed field. It casts neat long shadows in the late afternoon, and I've been meaning to stop for a photo. Yesterday I drove by it on the way to walk the dog and I thought to myself, "the light will be just perfect on the way home". So on the way home I stopped, but I was a little late. The sunlight was on the top 5 feet or so of the cab, but the base of the tractor was already in shadow. It still looked interesting and the light was dramatic. So I braced my camera on a fence post and as I was framing the picture, the fence post moved and made me release the shutter by mistake. I advanced the film, raised the camera to my eye, and the light was gone. There was no longer sunlight on the tractor at all. Couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 seconds. Wow.
There is a ridge off to the West of the valley that the sun went behind, and it made me think not only of Anza Borrego, but how many times I've had the light change suddenly just when I wanted a photo!
A couple years ago, I was standing at a pullout overlooking Anza Borrego in Southern California with the sun setting over the mountains behind me. Anza Borrego is in a broad flat plain, and I watched the shadow of the ridge behind me race across the plain at an almost unbelievable speed. The shadow moved miles in seconds. It was an amazing sight that I'll never forget.
Fast forward a couple years. The past few weeks I've been driving by a tractor parked in the middle of a wide flat neatly plowed field. It casts neat long shadows in the late afternoon, and I've been meaning to stop for a photo. Yesterday I drove by it on the way to walk the dog and I thought to myself, "the light will be just perfect on the way home". So on the way home I stopped, but I was a little late. The sunlight was on the top 5 feet or so of the cab, but the base of the tractor was already in shadow. It still looked interesting and the light was dramatic. So I braced my camera on a fence post and as I was framing the picture, the fence post moved and made me release the shutter by mistake. I advanced the film, raised the camera to my eye, and the light was gone. There was no longer sunlight on the tractor at all. Couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 seconds. Wow.
There is a ridge off to the West of the valley that the sun went behind, and it made me think not only of Anza Borrego, but how many times I've had the light change suddenly just when I wanted a photo!
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