Arizona has some of the most amazing sunsets you will ever see.  I am almost ashamed to say that after having lived in Arizona for just over 20 years it gets easy to sort of take them for granted.  After moving back “home” to the Pacific Northwest, those Arizona sunsets are something that I am sort of missing.  While the northwest can have nice sunsets, they typically aren’t those “fire in the sky” sort of sunsets that you see in Arizona.

I found myself in Oregon for a few days last week for work.  My job took to to Eugene and I decided to make a side trip out by the coast on the way home.  My biggest goal of the trip was to stop by and see Thor’s Well, I have seen tons of images from there, but have never witnessed it myself.  Unfortunately when I arrived at the area of Thor’s Well, it was pouring down rain, rain that would rival an Arizona monsoon downpour.  Needless to say, I stayed in the car and continued north towards home.

It really was just dumb luck that I found myself in this exact location for the sunset.  I would love to say that I planned to have a nice still bay for a reflection and a tree line that makes a nice “arrow” to point right at the setting sun, but sometimes you just get really lucky and end up in the right place at just the right time, this was one of those times.

Another thing that might surprise people about this image is that I only shot it ONCE.  I knew that I nailed the shot that I wanted and spent the rest of the time simply enjoying the sunset with the 6 or so other cars that were pulled over on the side of the highway enjoying it with me.  It was tempting to keep firing away and get dozens of shots of the sunset, but I would have missed witnessing this and chatting with the drivers of those other cars.  I guess the moral of this is that if you keep your eye glued to your viewfinder you really can miss some amazing things.  As much as making a great image is important to me, seeing the world through a viewfinder can be very limited.  Put your camera down at times and simply enjoy the magic that is around us each and every day.

Today’s blog post takes us back to Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach.  This image was from the great #NXNW weekend with Dave Wilson, Jim Nix, Jacob Lucas and Justin Balog.  As you can probably tell, this image was captured right at sunset. I still have hundreds of images from the weekend that I have done nothing with, but I have to give Jim a big thanks for posting one today which motivated me to share this one.

The Pacific Northwest – As seen through the lens of Scott Wood

Sharing an image of an iconic PNW scene reminds me to remind you that my 2013 calendar is available for order.  My calendar this year features 13 images I have captured since moving back home from the Arizona desert earlier this year.  I hope you will consider ordering one for yourself as well as for gifts for those on your holiday shopping list.

I have to be honest, this image started as a snapshot when my wife and I were in Aberdeen, WA on Sunday evening.  The only reason we were in the area was that a friend recommended a somewhat nearby roadside place, Clark’s Restaurant (which was awesome), and we decided to make a stop by the water on the way home.  I had my tripod and some gear with me, but just grabbed this image while we were watching some fishermen on the dock that you can see in the image.  I did like the position of the sun, the smoke coming out of the smoke stack and the color of the sky and the reflection it produced in the harbor, but again, it wasn’t a photo outing and I grabbed this sort of in a hurry.

Once I got home and imported it into Lightroom, I sort of fell in love with it.  The setting sun contrasts very nicely with the industrial setting on the right side of the image, and I love how I can just barely make out the fishermen on the dock.

If you enjoy this image, I sure would appreciate your using the share buttons and would love to have some blog comments as well.