Sunset on the Columbia River

It was warm and almost balmy into the early evening, just beginning to turn cool here. I love the reflection of the sky on the water, where the water is so light it's the same intensity as the sky (top photo). The parallel lines are the trolley track that runs along the waterfront. I took these photos at the place where the road goes out onto Pier 39. The patch of water is East Mooring basin, and the forest of fishing boats' masts makes a wonderful middle-ground for the photos. In the top pic, you can see a tiny bit of the Astoria-Megler bridge on the left. The dark background seen behind the masks is not the Washington coastline this time, but a fog bank coming in off the ocean and making its way upriver. We'd had another warm and sunny day, and typically a few days of warm weather will suck the fog in off the ocean and bring fog and overcast skies with it.

In hindsight, I should have framed the picture with more weeds in it. I had to do that trick with the digital camera, where you meter the light on the bright area (the sky) then re-frame your picture quickly before the exposure re-sets if you want to make the photo match what you're seeing. There must be a better way to do it, but I haven't figured it out yet. In any case it would take longer. I'll try to remember my framing for another time. It's the first thing some people think about, but often the last thing I think of.