Your first pic captures it well.

The sunset last night was absolutely incredible.

90% of the shots I took were unusable, and these two didn't begin to do it justice.

It seems like about half the stuff I'm trying to photograph is either invisible to the naked eye or happens so fast it might as well be.

I know exactly what you mean though, 99% of my shots get erased eventually.

A long time ago, back in the film days, I saw the photo equipment and supplies for a typical National Geographic expedition laid out in an article, there was a small mountain of film boxes. That's the day I realized that the trick to getting great pictures is not only to be technically competent but to take a hell of a lot of pictures to boot because a large percentage of them are going to be unusable for one reason or another.

I'm trying to learn manual settings for my little Nikon. The sunset last night was absolutely gorgeous, but 90% of my shots were unusable, and these two didn't even begin to do it justice.

You probably remember that enormous open space between the Petaluma River and Vallejo, looking south toward the bay. That whole sky was filled with combinations of enormous Altocumulus castellanus, Cumulus congestus, Stratocumulus opacus clouds (I'm guessing at the types) and it was lit up with everything from pastels to flaming reds/oranges, etc. As I said, I did it no justice.

Did you notice Mt. Tam in the center horizon of the first shot?

Thanks for posting.

Glad you liked them.

The Bay Area had some great cloud formations during this last storm!

Santa Cruz from East Cliff Drive Saturday night.


San Jose looking East Sunday afternoon.

The cloud formations were incredible over the weekend. We only got the occasional cloudburst up here, but the skies were magnificent!