Favourite Sunsets From 2015/2016

Last week I shared a post that contained a collection of sunsets that I capture in 2014. I hope that you enjoyed that post as today I am sharing with you another collection of sunsets. These ones come from a period of two years in 2015 and 2016.

I am somewhat surprised at how few sunsets I captured in these two years. In fact, I have a total of six images to share with you today. Which is actually almost every sunset I captured across these two years. There may have been one or two more, but without any reasonable photos to show for it.

Cleveland Point, 7th April 2015

One of the most interesting aspects of photographing the sunset is that you never know where to point the camera. In the image above the sun, would be to the left of the image and is throwing the light onto the cloud. The sun was just on the cusp of dropping below the horizon and throwing out this amazing colour. I could have easily picked out any number of photos from this day to share as the colours were amazing a good 15 minutes either side of this photo.

Christchurch, 23rd October 2015

One time that I wish I could capture more sunsets is when I am travelling. However, it is always a challenge to line up everything to make that happen. It was more chance than planning that found me in this location to capture the sunset when I was visiting Christchurch.

I was doing a little Geocaching with some friends and I noticed the colours of the sunset as we were stopped here. I managed to capture this one, although it is a little fuzzy, which is the result of no tripod handy.

Cleveland Point, 10th May 2016

Sometimes the idea of capturing the sunset sort of grabs me without a lot of time to do so. On this occasion, I saw some of the colour in the cloud before the sun had set and decided to try and capture it. The only problem was that it took slightly longer than I expected to get to Cleveland Point. Without too many other options along the way, I salvaged what I could with some of the colour left in the cloud.

Cleveland Point, 20th May 2016

Almost more interesting than the colours in the cloud sometimes is the formations that the clouds make. The way these clouds formed had no real pattern to it and they constantly changed through the afternoon. I captured this photo almost 20 minutes after the sun had dropped below the horizon. You could never have picked that the clouds would turn this pink/red colour. Most of the period of the setting sun had been totally orange before this colour appeared.

Cleveland Point, 22nd June 2016

I believe that this picture while far from technically perfect is the most interesting of these six photos. It appears like sun rays coming up from where the sun might have dropped below the horizon. The sun actually had dropped below the horizon behind the camera here.

The rays are what is known as anticrepuscular rays. A regular crepuscular ray is what you see for example when the sun rays are coming down through the cloud. Often when you see these rays if you look in the direct opposite direction you may have a chance to see anticrepuscular rays. They might sound strange, and uncommon, but if you are in the right conditions and know what you are looking for they can be seen.

Margate, 8th July 2016

On occasion, the setting sun doesn’t create a whole lot of interest itself. Such as this day, the sky was clear of most cloud, the water was nearly smooth and the sun was still too bright. So I pointed the camera just a little away from the sun and capture a much more interesting photo. The horizon across the water includes a number of the glasshouse mountains which are between Brisbane the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Sunsets

I am still amazed at just how different the sunset can be from the same location at times. You can possibly see that just from the number of photos in this post and the last at Cleveland Point. I had originally predicted that I would not have enough sunsets for a 2017 post. However, as it turns out I have too many. The result will be two posts with 2017 sunsets over the next couple of weeks.