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The Varieties of Sunset Experience

I’m not obsessed with sunsets over Lake Merritt—really, I’m not!—but it’s hard to resist pulling out a camera whenever I happen to walk the dog over to Lakeshore Avenue in late afternoon. And when the pictures turn out well, then it’s hard to resist posting them online.

That many of the sunsets from the east side of the lake are beautiful goes without saying, but what has struck me as I’ve photographed them over the months is their wide variety, depending on the season and the clouds and the temperature and presumably other changes in atmospheric conditions. So we sometimes get lurid splashes of color, sometimes golden halos, sometimes ominous skies, and sometimes serene reflected light.

There was no thrilling sunset through this evening’s rain, but last night’s is shown above. To be honest, my camera (or its operator, perhaps) failed to capture the color properly—it was, I think, more violet and less orange, but no less impressive. Possibly the color accuracy could be fixed if I knew more about editing digital photos, but the color as it came out of the camera will have to suffice for now.

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