Desert Sunset

We get some beautiful sunsets in the Sonoran Desert. This photograph was taken just after 7:00 PM in North Scottsdale, Arizona, just as the sun dipped below the horizon.

These shots are tricky because of the extreme contrast between the brightness of the sun and the darkness of the foreground (and in this case, the darkness of clouds above).   I used a 4-stop, neutral density, gradient filter to help balance the bright and dark areas of the scene. This filter is more resistant to light passing through it at the top than at the bottom. The opacity increases gradually from the top to bottom. I can slide it up and down to vary the rate of light penetration in different parts of the image. In this case, I lowered the filter to reduce the brightness of the sun in the middle of the image. Because the bottom area of the filter offers no resistance to light passing through it, I can increase the overall exposure and only this area will be brighter and more visible. The most resistant part of the filter is at the very top. Consequently, resistance to light in the area of the clouds is greatest and they are darker as a consequence. Ideally, I would use a filter with lower opacity at both the top and bottom, filtering only the middle of the scene. I don’t have such a filter.

I finished the picture with some further reduction of the contrast in Photoshop.