The three photographs with manually bracketed exposures were shot on June 18th, 2022 around 9:00 PM Pacific at Picnic Pt. Park. The month of June in 2022 has been unnaturally cold, with clouds and rain lingering around for an extended Spring and deep into summer, creating great opportunities for shooting sunsets. We arrived at the park about an hour to sunset - we knew the area fairly well because we had been to the place many times. I started off shooting a beautiful algae bloom over the beach but the sun was too bright for photography - the kind off lighting that I was hoping to find in that cloudy day. It made sense to wait till the sun is at the horizon or below it, for it could light the clouds over the horizon.
Minutes before sunset the sun peeked out from the clouds and suddenly the clouds started to catch the light. I had very limited time to capture it. I wanted to put the pier ruins in front of the island at distance and below the sun at the horizon but also make sure the pier stumps are not over the dark island mass in the background. The tide seemed high, so I had to shoot from a distance, an unusual spot that I was not familiar with and had not explored before. Once I was at a convenient spot with the view I desired, switched from 21mm to 45mm lens because I was far from the subject and quickly started shooting.