#SundayStills: Monthly Color Challenge: #Cobalt Blue

Published on by Yinglan

I woke up yesterday morning to a strange sky. The front of my house was bathed in sunshine while the back of my house was this very dark blue sky.

Correction: it wasn’t the sky that was this dark blue, it was the clouds.

We had a storm warning, you see. We’re supposed to get around 5-6 inches of snow between Sunday night and Tuesday morning. We shall see about that.

I ran back up to my room, grabbed the camera, changed to the 18-400 mm lens and rushed back down. It was less than a minute, tops but the sky was no longer this dark intense purplish blue. Instead, it was a lighter, still darker shade of blue. Still, I panned the camera around looking for a composition and found one with my neighbor’s aspen trees. The sun was shining on the white branches at that moment.

I actually had to look it up how dark is the color cobalt blue. The color reminded me of the times when I would use a CPL (Circular Polarizer Lens) filter on my camera and all the skies in the picture would be an unnatural shade of blue. Cobalt blue was that color.

I no longer use any filter on my camera, except maybe a ND (neutral-density) filter when I shoot long-exposures. The screwing on and off the filter is quite bothersome in my opinion as it not only takes time but each time when I tried to take the lens filter off, my anxious mind would begin playing out the worst scenarios.

So I’d say, “screw it,” I don’t need filters.

This was one of my favorite photos taken in Niagara Falls, by the way. I have been practicing my sun-star photography when I can. I read somewhere about sun-star photography can tell how many (blades?) is in a lens.

I remember that morning, just walking along the path, checking every few seconds to minutes, hoping the sun would just rise above the clouds, even just for a few seconds because I wanted to photograph the full sun, not just half of the sun with a cloud beneath.

At last, the sun had risen above the clouds. I set the camera to the lowest f-stop and clicked. I wanted to click another one but by the time I checked the photo and tried to focus again, a cloud has once again covered the bottom half of the sun. I was glad I got one though.

#SundayStills

21 thoughts on “#SundayStills: Monthly Color Challenge: #Cobalt Blue”

  1. Pingback: Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: My World of #Cobalt Blue – Second Wind Leisure Perspectives

  3. There is nothing like capturing that photo like the one of your neighbor’s aspens against that brooding blue sky, Yinglan. Really gorgeous. Interesting about the sun star technique–that is also a stunning image! Thanks for sharing and enjoy your holidays.

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  9. Love the trees. I can often get really good blue skies and contrasting clouds with a circular polarizer, especially when the sun is at an angle (not directly in front or behind).

    I don’t know if there will be anything left of the storm for you. Cement dumper here. Half the town had no power on Sunday morning, and the street wasn’t plowed (packed-down) until this morning. Sunny now, but the town is still digging out.

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