What better way to accentuate an already magnificent, sky-sweeping, landscape-lightning sunset scene than to wait a couple minutes after the wide-angle shot for its deeper colors to simmer and warm a bit, then shoot an evolved and well-textured subset of it! Though I’ve seen it before in eastern-sky sunsets, somehow the altocumulus’ magenta tones here stood out remarkably well amidst the sea of orange beaming from the storm complex in the background. The warmer, darker color of the lower, nearer clouds results from a denser atmosphere through which the sunset light had to pass, despite the greater distance of the thunderstorm anvil and mammatus formations. Even as this northeastern scene began to fade, the beautiful show was far from finished.
14 ESE Wheatland WY (5 Jul 19) Looking NE
41.9734, -104.7166