I was able to sneak away last night even though it wasn’t a super killer sunset evening. (My wife owed me a few hours of “Me” time and seeing as she was headed out of town on business for a week, I thought I best take her up on it!) So I took a drive to explore a lake I found on Google Maps called Morgan Lake just North of Dallas and Highway 22 and West of 99W. I was hoping that it would be a new place that I could take the family fishing however once I got there it looked to be a wildlife preserve of sorts. It wasn’t anything spectacular either but it was nice to get away from the screaming kids for a while and just walk around looking for photo opportunities. After deciding I probably couldn’t walk around the lake to get some sunset pictures, I walked back to the van and headed further North on highway 99W when this row of Oak trees and the setting sun (adjacent to an orchard) caught my eye. I knew this was where I needed to camp out as the sun set further beyond this road into the horizon. I took several images here and this one I used the HDR effects in Photoshop CS5 (trial). It totally reminded my wife and I of something that you would see on an album cover.

Finally another day with some clouds here in (Normally cloudy ….. and rainy) Salem. I have been jonesing for another sunset picture break. I had to run the store just in time to snap a few images tonight and my only regret was that I had turned off the RAW settings on my camera and was only shooting in jpg. Ugh!

Oh well, it was nice to get out for a few and enjoy the beautiful views – and I did get a few “ok” shots.