This photo is a companion to a previous photo of a Venice Beach sunset I took in 2019. Both photos show Venice’s iconic lifeguard stations on the same evening, although I took this one of a different hut later towards twilight.

When Gwen and I visited Carmel-by-the-Sea in 2018, I took advantage of California’s geography and beaches to take photos of the sunset. The last time I posted a photo from this trip, it was from right before the sun had set below the horizon. This photo is from well after sunset – about 35 minutes later than the earlier photo. This was well into “blue hour” territory, and one could argue the light was closer to dark than blue. But from the very last drop of light in the sky, I was able to compose and shoot this piece of driftwood on the beach.

We took a trip to Cozumel last December to scuba dive, but unfortunately I caught a cold on the first day. Since diving and sinus infections don’t really mix, I grabbed my camera and looked around for some photography instead. Cozumel is a weird little island because all of the development is on the west side of the island, and all of the public beaches are on the east. What you won’t find are any public beaches on the west, making sunset photography from a quiet little beach practically impossible. So this photo represents the next best thing – a shot from the El Mirador beach on the southeast corner of the island looking back across the narrowest stretch of land possible.

Sometime you just wake up and want to take photos. That was the case in 2012 when I took this photo of the Plum Island jetty near Newburyport, MA on an early November morning. I recall having in mind a pretty sunrise, but I ended up getting a cloudy bluish-gray morning instead. Not to be deterred, I went on to take this photo of the clouds over the jetty, mirroring the sea below.

My work travel sometimes take me to the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, but in the past I had never brought along my camera. My previous trips were always in the winter (or whatever passes for winter in LA), which meant shorter days and less opportunity to get out and watch the sunset. But on my recent trip in late-April, I knew I would finally have a chance to see the beach on a wonderfully sunny late afternoon.