At some point I became a fan of sunsets/rises. I think the first hint of this appeared in 8th or 9th grade. It was fall, nearing daylight savings time, but not quite there yet, and it was dark when I left home to walk to the bus stop to wait for the schoolbus. I remember walking backwards, watching the sun rise, and realizing that the colors created by the sun are not found anywhere else. I had the thought that even Crayola, despite its 100+ crayon packs and ridiculous crayon names, could never create a crayon that could capture the intensity of the orange light I was watching.

The most incredible sunset I've ever seen was in October 2010, at Mt. Hood in Oregon. The only camera I had with film in it was a disposable "Picture yourself at Pitt!" thing that Lolo gave to me.

Today* I watched the sunset from the ramparts of a fortress in St. Petersburg. The bare branches of trees silhouetted against a yellow and orange and pink sky reminded me so much of autumn in Colorado that it actually hurt. My SLR was loaded with BW film, and my Rollei had a roll of Kodak Gold 400 that expired in 2004 and sat around a closet in an old engineering building until someone found it and gave it to me. Nonetheless...





Ah, but photos can't ever quite capture the experience, eh?


*This was actually written a few months ago, when the sun did a little bit more than just drunkenly wobble above the horizon for a few hours, but after you add in my usual delay this is where you end up.