Atlantic Ocean Sunset With Orange Sky Colour Photography

Warm Sunset Light Beneath Layers of Open Ocean Clouds

Orange light gathers just above the horizon, with a broken reflection reaching towards me across the Atlantic Ocean. I photographed this sunset as the sun dropped low beneath a layered sky. The brightest colour occupies a relatively small part of the frame, but it changes the whole view. Around it, the water remains darker and the clouds shift through softer pink, grey and blue tones.

I like the different kinds of texture in the sky. Long, fine cloud bands sweep across its upper half, while smaller dark clouds gather nearer the setting sun. Their shapes make the warm opening seem more concentrated. Below the horizon, closely spaced ripples cover the ocean, catching the light in narrow patches. The reflection is a loose trail across those moving surfaces, with darker gaps keeping its shape irregular.

I kept both the water and the larger sky visible because their balance is what interested me. The ocean gives the photograph a steady horizontal division, while the clouds bring a much more varied arrangement above it. My eye moves between the bright sun, the surrounding cloud shapes and the lighter marks on the water. Colour gives the scene its immediate warmth, but those smaller changes in surface and tone keep me looking. For me, this photograph preserves a simple ocean view at an hour when the light briefly gives every part of it a different character.

© Dan Kosmayer, 2013