The sun sets in a dramatic cloudscape over farmland in Loudoun County, VirginiaI am really enjoying exploring my new home. Loudoun County, Virginia is rather large and quite rural, offering many locations to photograph if you can but take the time to find them.
The image above was shot recently just north of the town of Waterford. I knew the chances were good for a nice sunset based on a new website I’ve come across that attempts to predict the quality of sunrises and sunsets: sunsetwx.com. They aren’t always right, but it’s a pretty good tool to help in making your plans.
I need to become familiar enough with my new location that I can target where to be and minimize guesswork. For this shot, my wife and I hopped in the car about 40 minutes before sunset and drove up a road I’d been up once before in the hopes of finding a nice westward-facing scene. We fortunately came across this site just as the sun was approaching the horizon. We only had a few minutes to set up for the shot, which is cutting is just a bit closer than I’d like.
Taken with a Nikon D800, Nikkor 24-85mm lens at 48mm. 1/13th second @ f/11, ISO 100. This is a collage of 6 vertical images, 2 rows of 3 images each, resulting in a 123 megapixel image.
