Sunset in Seattle

Air, Land, and Sea

This is the last Seattle/PNW based photo post for a while. I was originally planning to do a Rainier astro trip before the move, to close out my time in Seattle the way it started, but wildfires closed the roads up to Sunrise (a pretty on-the-nose symbol of the increase in extreme weather the last 8 years from climate change). Instead, I actually hit a different Seattle bucket-list photo: sunset at Kerry Park.

This is one of the most famous Seattle skyline photo spots for a good reason: the space needle is prominent and unobscured, framed by the skyline of downtown; the port of Seattle is visible (along with some of the waters of the Puget Sound); and on a clear day, Mt Rainier looms over downtown, despite being 100 miles away.

Summer sunsets are typically pretty stellar, with shades of pink dominating the sky as the sun reaches the horizon. Watching the sunset sounds pretty mundane, but has always been one of our favorite summer evening activities. Sunset and the mountains have a hard to describe natural beauty to them.

I love the way this picture came out. The framing worked out well, in my amateur opinion. We’ve got the space needle, climate pledge arena, the ferris wheel, the port, the top of the seahawks stadium, the port cranes, the water, and pretty good clarity on the mountain itself. There is even an airplane visible! Overall, to me this framing captures a lot of the essence of Seattle: the futuristic vision of the space needle, the port and old school shipping/manufacturing, aviation, and incredible nature.

Getting the right lighting for this shot was a bit more of a journey. I was standing on the dirt area next to the viewing deck at Kerry Park for a couple of hours, trying to get shots of every possible set of lighting during sunset. I actually really wanted to get the city lights turning on while the sky was pink, but the skyscraper lights didn’t turn on until after the sun had set, and the sky was a more midnight/dark blue. The shots I got with the city lights on were cool, with very blue skies, but I think the dramatic pink of this shot takes the cake. This is my version of the definitive Seattle skyline shot, and I’m really happy with it. We’ll print and frame this one as a memento of our time in this amazing city. Goodnight, Seattle.