Grovers Joe and Maggie Thornton obtained this spectacular sunset image of Ocean Grove looking west. Oct. 13, 2016. Special to Blogfinger ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Photography Editor @Blogfinger
Actually, I don’t hate actual sunsets. I just dislike photographs of sunsets, especially when they are the only thing in the photo. Of course sunsets represent something mythic, something spiritual or just something profoundly and visually wonderful—so people love them.
Sunsets mark the end of the day, and have the power to soberly remind us of beginnings and endings. The Egyptians worshiped the Sun God. On Key West, everyone in town makes a pilgrimage to the pier where pagan rites greet the setting sun including spinning cotton candy, juggling the impossible four balls, eating fire, grilling baloney on a roll (ie hot dogs) and popping corn to the accompaniment of street musicians. The scene makes lovers more romantic, and kids become possessed as they run and jump with abandon on a Florida beach. And it is, of course, all very impressive and even emotional.
But photos of sunsets are so trite: the same color scheme, the same dramatic lighting, the same horizon, the same sun, the same oohs and ahs, and the same compositions. Can’t we all just send every sunset picture to Facebook so I don’t have to reject them on Blogfinger?
BUT (yes there is a butt about sunsets) if a sunset is secondary to a primary something, then all is forgiven. Take the image above where the skyline of Ocean Grove is framed by a glorious sunset. Or consider a sunset picture which doesn’t actually show the sunset, such as the surf shot below where the ocean is the star of the show:
OG sunset by Paul Goldfinger. 2014. © iPhone 4.
Or when the sunset provides the light for an end-of-the- day shot that photographers love for that “warm golden light ” as in the portrait below of a member of the Goldfinger clan at the Everglades.
Sun going down at the Everglades. 2013. Paul Goldfinger photo.
Sunset at a farm in Freehold, NJ. Paul Goldfinger photo © 2015
And it might be the gleaming colors reflecting off a sailing ship. I don’t have that photo, but Englebert Humperdinck can conjure it up for us: