Golden Ripple

There’s something magical about a sky filled with high, spotty clouds at sunset. Looking up at a patch of thin, fluffy clouds stretched across the sky, and looking below them, you see the golden rays illuminating them from the sun’s descent.

It creates a beautiful contrast of lighting, shading, and motion in the photo. The first shot is tilted in a Dutch angle looking up at the dark hills and rooftops.

A strip of golden fire from the setting sun lights the bottom edge of the bottom cloud bank, the rest of the bottom cloud bank is in silhouette, while the upper cloud bank is made from a collection of small fluffy cloudlets and are colored pale yellow and orange.

The second shot is in a level position with the horizon, showing the golden rays behind the trees. A tree line of silhouetted green conifers stands tall.

You can see the bottom of the atmosphere lighting, with a nice orange glow behind the clouds in the upper atmosphere which transitions to a darker blue grey. This shot captures a calm feeling of ending another beautiful day.