Sunset at Essex Green

Sunset in West Orange

Driving home this evening was an awe-inspiring experience.

Heading east on Route 80 from Parsippany, the golden glow of the setting sun is so intense, you can feel the heat from it. It baths everything in a golden glow, and blinds you with glare if you look in you rear view mirror. As I turn onto 280, the intensity subsides, but then it illuminates the tops of the trees surrounding the highway. I should have pulled over, to photograph it, but didn’t.

However, a request on the way home to pick up a bottle of Shiraz (which turned out to be Gumdale Reserve) netted this experience. The setting sun was just visible through the trees, and that golden glow was still there, so I took this shot.

As usual, the photo didn’t quite capture the essence of the moment, so a little post-processing was in order. It’s hard to say if the sky was actually that blue, but it intensifies the golden glow, so I went with it. Being pretty much neutral, there weren’t any blues to work with in the HSL / Grayscale panel of Adobe Camera Raw, so I adjusted the overall balance towards blue in white balance, and got my blue sky back.