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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Project 365: 1-18-11; The Golden Spiral and Twilight

No this has nothing to do with vampires and werewolves.. Not that Twilight....
The Golden Spiral:
The golden spiral in based on the fibonacci series. How it is used in composition is to start at the outer edge of your photo, rotate up and across, down and spiral into the main focus of the picture. In this image, your eye would natually start at the base of the tree, travel up the tree, then it would follow the clouds from left to right, then down, the left and up to the sunset. This photo was pleasing to me, and the golden spiral explains why the composition works. Your eyes naturally and quickly rotate around the image without being drawn and stuck to one focal point.

Sunset at Barlett Beach

Aperture: F/14; Exposure: 1/30s; ISO-100; Taken 1/17/11 5:38pm


With the Spiral
To learn more about the Golden Spiral, check out this article at Digital Photography School.
Another thing I can tell you about this image is when it was taken. Yes it was at sunset, but more specifically, it was just at the end of civil twilight, and just about at nautical twilight. Civil twilight is when the sun drops around 6 degrees below the horizon. If there are clouds, this is when the sun reflects off of them and produces the warm colors.

The next stage of twilight is Nautical Twilight. This is when the dusk blue sky appears and it is too dark for non-illuminated outdoor activities. Many objects are displayed in silhouette, such as this tree here. This is when the sun drops 12 degrees below the horizon.
Based on those descriptions, this picture was taken at the transition between those 2 stages.

The 3rd stage, by the astronomical twilight. This is 18 degrees and more, and is when the stars are visible.
To find out when these times occur in your area go to http://sunrisesunset.com/custom_srss_calendar.asp
The picture was taken at 5:30pm on Jan 11th. Based on the calendar, Nautical was at 5:38pm, so that explains the results of my picture.

Is your brain full yet?

Gnite...Gotta go shovel...

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