Sunset Light Begins | G Dan Mitchell Photography

First dusk color comes to the sky above Death Valley and the snow-capped Panamint Mountains.

Like most photographers, I’m typically attracted to the most intensely colorful phases of sunset light. I confess! Those colors are hard to resist, and frankly I don’t know of any good reason to not photograph them. (The “problem” perhaps occurs when one thinks that is the only light that is good enough to photograph.) As a matter of fact, not too long ago I shared another photograph from this spot, made at close to the same time on this evening, that does focus on a wildly colorful sky, captured at its peak of intensity.

This photograph is perhaps more subtle, photographed when the light was lovely but not so intensively colorful. Anyone who has observed such a sunset recognizes that it in a constant state of development and change. Late afternoon light almost imperceptibly fades into early evening light, and eventually the sky’s colors begin to intensify. At the most transient moment many elements are in play — the east becomes more blue, the sky in the far west seems “warmer” and more intense by contrast, and the whole thing parades across the sky from horizon to horizon. Here the fact that the gaudy colors are suppressed seems to allow us to see more clearly the beauty of the gentler blue light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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