I took my annual business trip to Florida a couple weeks ago an found some new locations, but didn't have particularly good sunrise and sunset conditions, so I'll probably get more macros and birds out of this trip than landscapes. The two shots below are from one evening with a cloudless sky that didn't appear likely to produce anything interesting. To hedge my bets I had found spots on both sides of the north-south road in case the earth shadow show was better than the sun side. As it happens, about 10 minutes after sunset a good crepuscular ray show developed, with the rays radiating outward from the sun below the horizon and converging again at the anti-solar point in the Belt of Venus on the other side. They weren't the strongest rays, but had a really pretty color, which I tried to draw out in these shots. I can't recall a time I have seen unbroken rays extending across the entire sky, so that kind of makes up for the otherwise unremarkable sunsets.
Thanks, Matt, Jim, Ute and Harry. The second really was the scene that got my attention, but when I noticed that the effect spread across the entire sky, I had to get the sun side too. the big advantage of the anti-solar side is that it is much easier to balance the tones of the ground and sky.
Hi Kristine, thanks. This is the first time I have had a chance of capture anticrepuscular rays as a significant subject. Sure turned around what would have been an utterly boring sunset!
