Tag: Sunset

I hate photos of sunsets so much, I thought it deserved a second post just so you’d know how strongly I feel about the issue. Yes, I admit there are more important issues vying for our attention at the moment. There’s a global pandemic. An epidemic of nationalistic jingoism verging on fascism. Millions of displaced people who face violence at every turn. Even so, an issue is never quite an issue until it’s my issue. And this is my issue.

Here, I remedied the boring sunset shot with rocks silhouetted in the foreground and the chance appearance of a boat edging into the frame. I particularly like how the clouds direct the eye to the boat. We can imagine that Fredo is sitting in that boat, about to get his brains blown out. Fortunately, Fredo is made up, just like my issue.

In my estimation, a sunset is the dumbest excuse for a photograph ever invented. And yet people go gaga over sunsets. I don’t know why. What do people think it means to watch the sun disappear as the Earth rotates? Is it a sign from god? Does it inspire awe at the wonder of creation? Does it serve as a reminder of our mortality?

In strict visual terms, a sunset is as boring as all fuck. If you plunk your camera level with the horizon and take shots of the sun sinking below the horizon, then what you’ve got is a photo of nothing much happening. The only way to counteract that is to plunk your camera level with the horizon when you think something else might enter your frame. Like a dinosaur. Except dinosaurs are extinct. I’ll settle for a boat.

What I like about this photo is that the guy steering the boat agrees with me. He could care less about the sunset. He wants to know why there’s a guy standing on a rock with a long lens mounted on a tripod.