Is it, or isn’t it?

A friend related to me some comments made about a photo I had taken at Riverfront Park, in downtown Spokane. Rather than a traditional sunset photo, the image was actually facing downtown, to show the sun setting reflections in the windows of the businesses. After I got it onto the hard drives and the computers, I was satisfied with the image, and put it on the web.

http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/meadow.htm

The particular image in question was emailed to the Spokane Camera Club for its monthly competition, and I was out of town for the “critique.” The topic of the month was sunsets, and the comments related to me were that the person doing the critique stated that this was not a sunset shot.

It was an image taken at sunset, and timed to be exactly at sunset, with a view of the setting sun in windows rather than the traditional view of the sun setting in the sky on the horizon. Since I was told of those comments, I have always wondered what a sunset really was, if it was not an image of the setting sun along with other objects in the same frame of the shot. The job of critiquing images displayed at a Spokane Camera Club meeting is pretty much a thankless one, and having a professional comment on your shots is geared toward making members better photographers. Yet, if a shot taken at sunset, during a sunset, is not really a sunset photo, then what is? Beats me……

Anyhow, at risk of offending someone for taking another view of Spokane during a sunset, I offer up a more “typical view,” of a Spokane sunset. This image was at sunset, with some orange reflections off the clouds, with a focal point of a landmark on the right half of the image. I wanted the left half void of any focal points, and to begin water reflections in the lower third of the frame with the landmark beginning in the second third of the frame.

Anyhow, I hope this is a sunset photo, especially one you can enjoy.

http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/landmark.htm

John