STICK AROUND AFTER THE CREDITS

December 1, 2024, 6:06:50pm, Ventura Harbor Village, California. f/4.5, 1/20 sec., ISO 100

By MICHAEL PERKINS

BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN SOME A-LIST MOVIES WERE PRESENTED as so-called “road shows”, there was an inducement to get people to stay in their seats even after the picture ended. The road show treatment, reserved for such wide-screen wonders as Ben-Hur, How The West Was Won, Lawrence Of Arabia and other epics was created so exhibitors could command premium ticket prices on select films at select prestige theaters, grand palaces where the movies could be stretched into an entire evening’s entertainment. The show included music overtures before the film, the actual dramatic drawing of a theatre curtain, a mid-feature intermission (many of these pictures were quite long), and, after the end title, so-called “exit music”, an orchestral re-statement of the major themes of the score, used to accompany the audience’s departure. The music was so beautiful that it was not uncommon for people to keep their seats until it was finished. Hooray for Hollywood.

6:09:22. f/3.5, 1/80 sec., ISO 100

All of which I’m mindful of when trying to capture a sunset. Of course, we all want the big money shot of the blazing red/orange ball of sun just as it kisses, and then slips below, the horizon. But some of the best and most dramatic displays of light and color happen in the minutes after the ball drops. Some photographers actually prefer the sky’s “exit music” to the sun’s formal “the end”.

And I’m one of them.

The three shots, scene here, of a sunset on the first day of December in Ventura, California illustrates how dramatically, and rapidly, shifts in tone happen within just minutes after a sunset. The earliest frame up top sees the orange from the just-vanished sun radiating more than halfway up in the sky, blending into the last vestiges of a daylight blue. In the second, the red at the horizon has intensified, blending now into a deep purple at it tracks skyward. And finally, all the reds are receding, as a new, deeper blue begins to set the scene for night. All within the space of five minutes.

6:12:38pm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec., ISO 1600. Suddenly, it’s a blue world….

You get the idea. A blazing sun is spectacular at sundown, to be sure; however, the light show that follows, after the movie ends, is so wonderful, you may want keep your seat until the last bit of exit music fades…