The Golden Hour on Silver Lake

We have been on holidays since last Friday although we are not heading off to the cottage until tomorrow. Mostly so far, we have been attending to those little chores and appointments that pile up. Today will be a day to compile whatever we think we need for our time away. There's much stuff to collect from here and there and pile at the door before we endeavour the Herculean task of trying to pack it all in the vehicle tomorrow. Ah well, we usually manage.

On Saturday, however, we did enjoy an early mini break. We drove about an hour west and parked our car, our chairs and ourselves on a little peninsula on the shores of Silver Lake. We enjoyed a modest picnic lunch and some reading. I was really waiting for the golden hour, the hour around sunset when the light becomes wonderful if we're lucky and good pictures can be taken. While we did not enjoy the most beautiful sunset ever, the general light did become really lovely after the harsh and bright light of the preceding hours.

I took these first two photos about 30-40 minutes before sunset. I rushed the golden hour just a bit but was getting too anxious to hold off any longer.

For much of our waiting time we sat by the water on the other side of this knoll looking at the picturesque farm across water. You can barely see it in this view, but we'll come back to it later.

There were a few fishers on the lake during our hours there, but this guy stayed the course longer than most.

A little later, I took these next two pictures.

The sun lights up the rock and trees.

This might be my favourite photo of the day as I pointed my camera away from the setting sun to a point of land to the east. It's a simple picture, but the blues of the water really please my eye.

We come to the time where the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon but still peeking out and casting pretty wonderful light.

The fisher is still out there as the sun dips halfway below the horizon.

The sun is just about gone, and three loons come out to play in the golden light. I know this photo looks phony and photoshopped, but this is the way it really was, at least according to my camera.

As the sun was almost disappearing, I decided to take another photo of the farm on the little peninsula to the west.

I took this final shot after the sun had gone down but was still casting light over the western horizon.

The sun is gone but the light remains for awhile. I took a lot of photos that I didn't keep. For this one, I remembered the rule to keep something in the foreground of a landscape photo. I got low for this shot, and I think it paid off.

That's about it folks, the Golden Hour on Silver Lake. Today we scramble to get ready and tomorrow we head to cottage country. We'll see you in a few weeks.