Tag Archives: Sunsets and Sunrises

Crossing the line

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Late afternoon sun of the coast of Kohala, Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Silence.’ See more responses here.

The current eruption at Kilauea has been putting out a considerable amount of vog. This volcanic haze can make life difficult for people, causing respiratory and other medical complications. But it can also cause colorful skies.

I was driving home from work last week on a day when the vog was heavy and the sky glowed. There wasn’t much wind – another reason the vog has been hanging around – so the ocean was calm. I’d stopped to take photos once, but when I saw this little boat heading for this band of sunlight, I pulled over again.

I’d lucked into a quiet break in the traffic and was far enough from the coast that there was no sound from waves coming ashore or from the boat’s engine. I watched for a while until the boat crossed the glittering band, before returning to my car and heading home.

The sun ducks below the horizon

Something seen just after sunset in Hawaii

Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge asks us to post the last photo we took in October (See more response here). Mine came from a couple of evenings ago.

I was taking photos of the sunset and when the sun dipped out of view I noticed a strange something on the horizon. I zoomed in and took a couple of photos, this being the second of those.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on here, but then it all became clear. I realized, some 20 miles out to sea, an enormous duck was paddling by. I mean, what else could it be?

Mauna Kea in red

Mauna Kea at sunset

Returning from a recent hike, I drove round a corner and saw Mauna Kea looking completely red in the setting sun. I pulled over and grabbed my camera, but by the time I took photos, a matter of a couple of minutes, only the top half of the volcano was still illuminated.

This though was my last photo from September, posted here for Bushboy’s Last on the Card challenge (see more responses here).

I took the photo with a view to making a few adjustments, which I’ve done in the bottom photo. The main thing was to crop some of the sky, which I had to include in the photo to get the full volcano. The other thing, which is a bit of an oddity with my camera, is that in certain lighting conditions it will produce a somewhat dull and hazy image. But adjusting the Lighten Shadows feature from zero to one makes the difference seen here.

Mauna Kea at sunset