Sonnenuntergang aus Woherichsitze

Sunset from Whereisit. It's very Wagnerian sometimes. I just happened to glance to my right and saw this. 

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Psych!

Klicken sie für die größe und herrlichen! (Ich denke)

Sunrises are just as pretty.

The stunning orange reminded me of another incident that leads me to believe Hawaiian people are easily tickled. 

My brother James wanted to see sunrise at the top of Haleakala. It's a thing. That involves getting up very early for a long drive. Freezing cold. At the top of the mountain, much like Lookout Mt. over Golden, people are standing around waiting in darkness for this right here in reverse. There is a bowl of mountain tops that fills with clouds viewed from above them. But not a regular mountain range, the rim of a gigantic volcano making up a good part of the island with steep sides and a spattering of volcanic cones inside it, now covered in clouds about to be lit up by the morning sun. People are waiting oddly bundled up for winter on a tropical island wrapped in quilts but also shorts and sandals and all with their cameras. Quiescence and solemnity characterize the crowd. Looks like this.

I can see people around me making a mistake. I offer, "The light situation is the bright light behind you. You will be a silhouette, a nice effect. Most point-and-shoot pocket cameras have a setting for this situation that sets f-stop and shutter speed for brightly lit clouds and also provides flash for the people in front of it." 

"Ooooh." 

They were receptive to my insight. They get to use a button! 

They cheered my good camera-sense. They appreciated the warning.

And that beats the heck out of "shut up and mind your own business." But my Nikon does not do that. It just has "automatic." It can, though, take three or five or however many I tell it pictures in a row and change the f-stop between shots within a range then the same photo taken differently stacked and combined, not for an average, but for the best of each one of them. 

Waiting for the sun, I recalled to James, whispering, as everyone does up there, a television advertisement that shows father and small son observing a tropical sunset. As a blazing orange sun disappears behind the horizon the father says, 

"Going..." pause... "going..." pause... "gone."

Pause.

The sillouette of the boy turns to look up at his father, in awe-struck whisper,

"Do it again, Daddy." 

An Hawaiian guy nearby roared laughing breaking the mystical spell that everyone was under, a sort of sleepy early morning trance was shattered and people began speaking normally. And it's not that funny.