Bogus vs. real Sunset Photo
Note! None of the photos on Border Crossings have been edited other than to make an image appear more similar to the “way it was.”
There are two images here, and the smaller one is the “the way it was.”
This sunset is a view so familiar to photographer Eric Van Buskirk that he may as well be looking at a photo of the back of his hand when opening this page. The image shows the ease with which photo editing programs make easy, realistic looking reality-altering simple for the most computer challenged individuals. To dramatize this photo– by bringing up the intensity of the orange/yellow/gold color, all that was required was ONE simple change in a free web down-loadable image application.
In the end, reality wins over the over-photoshopped world we see around us. Van Buskirk has seen the sun set over these mountains 100s of times and some of the un-edited shots are in fact far more striking than this image.
The most important sunset to occur in the “gap” with Tumbledown mountain to the right, occurred during the summer after Mount Saint Helen’s erupted in Oregon. On one evening in particular, the entire sky was lit with so many different colored, textured cloud formations, everything from neon green to pastel purple, that a NASA probe of Saturn or Jupiter could only find a slightly more exotic image. When Photoshop can’t do the editing, volcanoes can.
That photo will be dug up, scanned, and put up on Border Crossings one day. Maybe the original photo here is not too inferior to the golden version.