"Let there be light"

As you will be aware, I have recently visited "The Nine Mile", near Broken Hill. This is Outback New South Wales. Here are some of the spectacular sunrises and sunsets which we saw while we were at The Nine Mile.

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Not only is light an artistic inspiration, it is quite literally, the power house of life on earth.

I like to think of sunrises as a rebirth, a daily renewal of the gift of life to all creation. So, I thought I would start this blog with the old Biblical quote "Let there be light".

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw that the light was good." (Gen. 1:1-4)

Sunrise on Day 2 - our first sunrise.









late afternoon light bathing the hills to the east. Immediately prior to the sun setting behind us.









Sunset - the earth's shadow.
As sunset rages in the west the eastern sky gets "washed" with blue light, which literally is the shadow cast by the earth on the dust particles in the atmosphere. I love this "reverse sunset" effect. One can observe a similar "reverse sunset" from the top of Macquarie Pass, just out from Robertson, looking out over the ocean.









First sunrise was a good one.









Last Sunrise, before we left. A nearly clear sky gives little "colour".









And now for a "confession" - digital cameras can record the light from a sunrise and a sunset in a different way from the way the human eye sees things. Our eyes adjust to the light, or lack of it - as the sky brightens, our eyes "wash the colour out", as they adjust to receiving more light. The camera focuses on the brightest spot of the sky, and adjust as if the entire image was as bright as that point. This "adjustment" results in a darkened area in the foreground. This is not how our eyes see sunrises and sunsets.

So, these photos are more "intense" than we might remember seeing them (in real life).

They have not been digitally "faked up", but it is just one of the joys of using a digital camera.