In Which I Become Captivated by the Mountains at Dusk

I don’t know how obvious it was, a few posts back, that I was totally thrilled by the visit Maria and I made to the mountains to check out the sunset the other week.  It was, without the slightest doubt, the most stunning and breathtaking sunset I’ve ever seen, and we knew, as we set out to repeat the experience last night that it was unlikely to be exactly as awesome, if only because we might have that “seen it all before” feeling.

We spent part of the afternoon studying and talking about night photography so I guess you could say we were quite psyched up as we set off around 8pm again, taking the same route as the last time.  As we approached the first vantage point we’d used last time we could see that a sunset was brewing that would have taken away our breath had we not seen the one two weeks ago.  The horizon was a shifting haze of pastels, pinks and lavendars.  We’ve had calima for a few days, and it was obvious that it would affect the scene.  We carried on to the spot we’d found the last time, and found ourselves, just as before witnessing a change from pastels to jewel brights, but weighed down by what we assume was the cap of dust hovering over the island, the “polvo en suspensión” carried by the winds from Africa.  It made the sunset a different experience from last time. The scene was like the one you have from an airplane window, the colors leaking around the horizon instead of painting the sky. It changed the light and the colors, and whilst the photos are less spectacular too, it was a really interesting experience and a learning curve.  I realize that I need to understand more about climate and weather, and I also realized for certain that I need to really learn this art.  Honestly, I’ve seen photography up to now as a way to illustrate the things I see and experience, to share them and explain them, and if I got a few good ones I was most happy.  Words will always be my first love, but I am feeling the pull of photography absolutely now.  I am hungry to learn!

I’m more than aware that a lot of these fall into the “could have done better if she knew what she was doing” category, but it’s the beginning, and it still gives you of what my other love, Tenerife, is like.

And this time I remembered my tripod – but, guess what it was broken!!!!  I can’t tell you how fed up I was!  I did, however, have my remote, so by putting the camera on top of the car again, using my binolculars to angle it and using the remote I got a couple of worthwhile shots…..more learning!

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