A September Sunset

So the last week and half or so for me have been pretty rough. Not bad - lots of fun stuff that I'm thrilled to be doing, but nonetheless physically and emotionally exhausting. Anyways, right before all the crazy started, I headed out for some peace and quiet at Lake Michigan. Now that I *finally* :D have a chance to breathe, here's the photos!

 So first off, I noticed these trees that I had never really paid attention to before. Cool! It was fun catching shots of the sun coming through the leaves.

Now it's off to the beach!

 Obligatory "reed intersecting the sun ball" picture... ;)

 And now begins the slew of actual sunset pics. I know that it may be a little repetitive, and I do go on a lot of sunset photography trips...but hey, right now this is what I want to write about. It was so refreshing just to be there and see it, plus of course be creative and have fun taking photos. 

Side note, while I do love my chosen career of science and how methodical it is (something that suits me to a T!), it is so nice to have a hobby where I can be creative and not have to play by any rules!!

 This lady was trying to rush out of my way, which was very polite...however, my photos look best with unsuspecting subjects in front of the sunset! ;) Just another case of how I love photographing candid portraits of people interacting with their environment.

 I had fun trying to catch waves in my shots, too.

 Loved how smooth the water was.

 A different angle! More from above!

 Fire! It was lit! So hot! There, does that make me fit in with the current generation?? ;)

There was a really nice photographer lady that I had a fun chat with, her dog was clearly enjoying his time swimming in the lake!!

Love the silhouettes. 

It was right around the time that the sun sank below the horizon that I realized for the first time in seven months of coming out to Warren Dunes that hey, I have manual controls on this thing!! I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. Anyway, with what daylight I had left, I thoroughly enjoyed messing with the settings to get various shots. Twas lots of fun!!

For example, the above and below shots were taken from the same location, just different settings. Though I sadly forget what I altered. Anyways. Very cool to realize that I can get different types of shots, different moods, with just the push of a button.

Sunset was around 8:15pm. Park closes at 10pm. Since I had a little extra time, I thought I would see what the lake looked like right after that great fireball sinks below the horizon. Very interesting to see how fast everyone flocked to their cars and drove away. Less than half hour later, I had the beach all to myself!! Anyways, I too was going to leave, but when I got to my car, the above view greeted me...so of course, back down to the beach I went! :D

The End :)