A Very Cold Photoshoot

Sue required a blue hour photo for her 365 prompt. With the sun due to set at 5:35, we decided that we would also get there in time for a possible sunset photo. As we got out of the car, I thought this stand of trees was worth pointing my camera at to catch the western side being lit by the low sun. The sun is still weak these days, so the contrast isn't remarkable, but it was worth a try at 5:13, 22 minutes before sunset..

I could see that it was not going to be a good night for a sunset, but I was there, so I made the best of it. I looked for any sort of foreground element and pointed the camera toward the lowering sun and squeezed the aperture to get a bit of a sunburst effect.

I waited until most of the sun had lowered beyond the distant trees and took the above photo at 6:29, 6 minutes before the sun truly dipped below the rim of the Earth at our latitude. The foreground elements, above, are part of the boat launch. There remains a bit of open water out past the frozen shelf near the riverbank, but you can hardly detect it in this ↑ photo.

My hands were almost numb at this point, so I retreated to the car, keeping the motor running and holding my hands near the heater.

Twenty-five minutes later, which was 11 minutes after sunset, blue hour had set in although there was still a tinge of colour. My hands had thawed, so I hopped out of the car and grabbed this ↓ photo, but this time I just upped the ISO and didn't bother with the tripod. Sunset colour remained for about 10 more minutes after I took the photo, but we were done. 

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I just remembered that Sue has some pics of me during this process. Rather than back up and try to insert them sequentially in the above narrative, I'll append them here.

She took this first snap of me looking around for place to set up my tripod at 5:16. You can see the tripod still unopened by my side.

I didn't find what I wanted there, so I began to set up nearby two minutes later. Look at the difference in colour by pointing to and away from the sunlight. Darn, it was cold.

I still wasn't happy with the composition, so I did move to a higher point, somewhere behind me in the ↑ photo. But here the pictures end. Enjoy the weekend, and keep warm.