Thursday, September 8, 2011

You Capture - Back-to-School AND Summer Sunsets

This week Beth gave us a You Capture choice - either Back-to-School or Summer Sunsets. Of course, right away I chose summer sunsets because I don't have any back-to-school people in my household. However, since I happened to be at Beth's yesterday when the kids got home, I felt compelled to try to capture Back-to-School.

Here they are right after they got off the bus and as they ran up to greet Eli and I.

And it's incredible to me how much things have changed since our kids were in school. Back then, computers were only around for games and entertainment - today they might will be an integral part of a homework assignment.

As I drove home, I started making plans to capture a beautiful sunset over Lake Michigan and I just know if there had been a few respectable clouds, I would have nailed this challenge. Instead of clouds, though, there was wind and I tried to include some of the incredible waves while being sand blasted and never taking my hand off my camera bag and tripod for fear they'd blow away.

Obviously I wasn't the only one braving the incredible, relentless wind to capture the moment.

I took hundreds of pictures and I just couldn't quite get it right. If I captured the sky, the waves disappeared in shadows. If I got the waves right, the sunset colors washed away. So I'll just include a couple of samples of what I got (including the Chicago Skyline in the next one).

After pretty much accepting defeat at the lake shore, I headed over to the harbor and captured what I think are true summer sunsets.

Even here the winds were howling but since it was a much more protected area, the gales are not reflected in the photos. And I like them better.

For more You Capture - Back to School and/or Summer Sunsets, visit Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

13 comments:

  1. The very first picture has incredible perspective. Creative! I also enjoyed your sunset pictures over lake Michigan. Don't you hate when weather doesn't cooperate with the perfect capture? They are so colorful nonetheless.

    Beautiful work. :)

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  2. I personally think you NAILED it!!! On both counts! Back to school AND sunsets. I love them all! Wow, I want to live near lake Michigan. Gorgeous!!! :)

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  3. Great shots! LOVE that last one with the sunset and the lights!

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  4. Love the off-the-bus shot, and the colors in those sunset photos ... beautiful!

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  5. I love how you captured the school bus in the background of the photo of your kids! I tried to do that with my kids, but they were scattered in opposite directions, so that didn't happen, heh.

    Beautiful sunset photos, too! :)

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  6. I thought "Lake Michigan" as soon as I saw those photos of the sunsets...gosh, I think they turned out beautifully even though there aren't many clouds!

    Thanks for stopping my by blog.

    kateri @ http://dandelionhaven.blogspot.com/

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  7. Beautiful! I can't get over how great the sunset pictures at Lake Michigan turned out! wow wow!! NICE! It's so cool that you got to be there when the kids got off of the bus and you got to capture that moment, it's a great picture....great job!!!

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  8. I am so very jealous of you sunset pictures :) They are so awesome, and a wonderful way to end a sunny day too! Great pics.

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  9. Love that you got the back to school shots. Around here, I'm the only one that goes back to school now (well, my son is going back to college, but I don't think he'd have cooperated with some pictures). All of those sunsets are beautiful!

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  10. what shots! The last one is my favorite times a million! Nice job, Mom!

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