End of the Day
Ross Colonial Cemetery, a pre-Revolutionary family burial ground at the edge of a cliff that has overlooked the valley for milennia, at sunset on an autumn afternoon.
Copyright (c) 2015 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Sunset, Old St. Luke’s
Sunset, Old St. Luke’s
Say what you will about winter and snow and cold, the combination makes for dramatic sunsets.
This is the Revolutionary-era churchyard of Old St. Luke’s Church in Scott Township, PA, the first Christian church established west of the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. It was originally a native American lookout place on a bluff above the Catfish Path, which we call Chartiers Creek. I’ve canoed past this place on the creek, and visited this site when the church was closed when I was a child, though now it is restored.
I used a wide-angle lens on my camera that is not made for it, but fits well enough that I can take a good photo with it. I’m glad to have a new piece of equipment.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
The Enchanted Allée
The Enchanted Allée
The rows of sycamores leads me off into the colors.
Below is a gallery of all the winter sunset images.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
The Road Home
The Road Home
Who wouldn’t follow those swashes of color?
Below is a gallery of all the winter sunset images.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
End of the World
End of the World
The sky certainly was dramatic, and the bare tree in the center brought home the idea. My smartphone doesn’t zoom well, so below it’s a little soft.
End of the World
Below is a gallery of all the winter sunset images.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
I Chased a Sunset
I Chased a Sunset
…and it disappeared over the edge
and took a piece of my soul with it.
Really, on the way home from a quick errand to a shopping center I encountered a stunning winter sunset just beginning to color and decided to take a detour through a local park to see it in progress. All I had was my smartphone which doesn’t handle colors and contrasts at all well, but decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
The sunset had me racing over acres of the park which is on a ridge over a valley, just the perfect setting to watch the sun drop below the far horizon with both trees as a foreground, and then nothing but sky. I’ll be featuring a few others, and maybe a slideshow or something.
Below is a gallery of all the winter sunset images.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Solstice
“Solstice”, pastel, 6″ x 6″ © B.E. Kazmarski
This painting is indeed from the Winter Solstice in 2003. As the sun began to set on a zero-degree day with a foot or more of snow the light was so beautiful that I took off in my car with my camera and art supplies. At the top of the hill the gentle pink and coral tones of the sunset melded with the blue of dusk on the field of unbroken snow at the old Christmas tree farm, one of my favorite spots. It was too cold to draw outside since I can’t wear gloves and would soon be dropping my pastels in the snow, so I positioned my car on a convenient side road and sketched this in my front seat. As it does sometimes, the sun seemed to hang in the trees just before it disappeared: solstice, “sun-stand-still”.
It’s just a little thing, 6″ x 6″, one of my favorites, especially now that the place is gone to development. It became the inspiration for an exhibit I hosted in 2004, “Winter White”.
And this painting, which I’ve always loved so much, has a wonderful home with a friend who also loves it very much.
If you are interested in a print of this painting, please contact me.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Red Sunset
Red Sunset
What a way to end a gray day.
I was lucky to catch this. I live just far enough down an east-facing hill that I can’t see any sunsets, and can only guess from what little bit I see nearly directly overhead. When I see the sky with a bit of color, I know there’s even more on the western horizon and run to the top of the hill. Usually, when I do this, I get there just in time.
And after all the years I’ve been catching sunsets from this vantage, I’ve finally made my peace with the tree. In fact, I think its lacy character adds to the composition.
No sunsets are as brilliant as a late autumn or winter sunset. It almost makes up for sunset at 4:50 p.m.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
“Winter Sunset Reflections”
“Winter Sunset Reflection”, 7″ x 17″, pastel on black paper © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
It’s not winter yet but the trees are bare and today’s afternoon and evening sky were completely free of clouds. Just after the sun dropped below the horizon that pure blue of twilight smoothed the sky but for the glow above the horizon. I knew it was coming and hurried to my favorite place to watch the sunset, on a hill with a long view of the landscape, then traveled down to the valley to the Panhandle Trail to see this sight once again.
I painted this scene for my August exhibit “Sun Shadow Ice & Snow: Seasons of the Panhandle Trail” during Rock the Quarry, the annual fundraiser for the Panhandle Trail.
I decided to do this painting at pretty much the last minute, though I’d been visualizing it for years. The scene is one I’ve often seen along the trail on a winter evening. This painting was done from a photo I’d taken one of those winter evenings on the trail, a clear, cold day with a cloudless sky at sunset, the sky reflected on Robinson Run. The velvety darkness of the land contrasts so completely with the brilliance of the sky and its reflection on the water and, simple as it is, it’s always been one of my favorite images.
I used black Canson charcoal/pastel paper and only painted the areas of light and finally achieved what I’d been visualizing.
PURCHASE THIS PAINTING, AND SEE MORE ART
This painting is available for sale, framed, in my Etsy shop, along with prints.
You can see other paintings from this exhibit here.
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If you are interested in purchasing this painting or any other originals I have posted here on Today, please contact me. I will also have prints of this painting after the exhibit.
Kayaking at the Point
Kayak on the River
On waters flecked with gold a kayaker rounds the Point in Pittsburgh where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers come together to form the Ohio.
I took this photo and the one below during the Three Rivers Arts Festival in June 2014. Today looked much the same as I drove through downtown Pittsburgh and looked at the rivers. Because the kayaker is in silhouette it was a little difficult to tell what he’s doing so I wanted to capture a shot with a clear shape of the paddle somewhere in the image, but the silhouette itself and the angle of the kayaker made that nearly impossible. I walked along the wharf keeping the kayaker in the line of the sun’s reflection, taking photos all the way, hoping I wouldn’t run into someone in the crowds at the festival and also hoping I wouldn’t just walk off the edge of the wharf.
I was rewarded with the photo above, also capturing the clear and focused sparkles in the front and softened sparkles behind the subject, and absolutely nothing else but him in the water. Below, I also wanted to get that fantastic sun that turned out so cool in so many of these photos, as well as a bridge and the hills beyond, so “Pittsburgh”.
Kayaking at the Point
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
My Booth Friday Night
My exhibit Friday night.
Last night was a lovely night–a little warm and humid but well attended, lots of visitors, the rain held off until after we left and I’ve sold a few things already! I had wanted to share this photo on social media last night but simply could not get enough of a signal so I’m posting it here. Hopefully I’ll be able to share today–after a foggy, soggy morning has turned into blue skies with pretty puffy clouds.
Looking forward to a great day during Rock the Quarry in my exhibit “Sun Shadow Ice & Snow: Seasons of the Panhandle Trail”. Take a look at other paintings from this exhibit.
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If you are interested in purchasing this painting or any other originals I have posted here on Today, please contact me. I will also have prints of this painting after the exhibit.
New Painting: “Winter Sunset Reflections”
“Winter Sunset Reflection”, 7″ x 17″, pastel on black paper © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
I decided to do this painting at pretty much the last minute, though I’d been visualizing it for a long time. The scene is one I’ve often seen along the trail on a winter evening. This painting was done from a photo I’d taken one of those winter evenings on the trail, a clear, cold day with a cloudless sky at sunset, the sky reflected on Robinson Run. The velvety darkness of the land contrasts so completely with the brilliance of the sky and its reflection on the water and, simple as it is, it’s always been one of my favorite images
I used black Canson charcoal/pastel paper and only painted the areas of light and finally achieved what I’d been visualizing.
You can see it along with others this Friday and Saturday during Rock the Quarry in my exhibit “Sun Shadow Ice & Snow: Seasons of the Panhandle Trail”. Also take a look at other paintings from this exhibit.
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If you are interested in purchasing this painting or any other originals I have posted here on Today, please contact me. I will also have prints of this painting after the exhibit.
Wildflowers of a Summer Evening
Wildflowers of a Summer Evening
Some flowers are spent, some are fully leafed and petalled and colorful. I posted a slide show to my “Wildflowers of the Lower Chartiers Watershed” collection, a hillside of wildflowers taken in warm evening sunlight at Kane’s Woods in Scott Township in early August a few years ago. The memory of these flowers warmed me in the cold snowy months of winter, and while I’ve used a few here and there in designing one thing or another I’ve never decided what to do with the collection.
Though I used my Pentax K10D, for the lens I used my favorite non-digital 35mm fixed-focus lens with the 1.5X converter which shortens the depth of field allowing me to focus on just one insect if I choose; this lens is probably 30 years old, but it never fails me. In this way, I can manage the foreground and background and simply focus on one object, and I can achieve those lovely random abstract effects with lighting and shapes.
A slide show, even without music, will have to do for now.
The flowers you see are echinacea or purple coneflower, and its rarer cousin yellow coneflower, wingstem, Virginia stickseed, fleabane, black-eyed susan, Queen Anne’s lace, catnip, goldenrod, ragweed, and curled dock. Some are in seed already, but they add their drama to the mix.
Please enjoy the show. You can click here to bring it up as a flash slideshow or visit “Wildflowers of the Lower Chartiers Watershed”, scroll down and choose Wildflowers for a Summer Evening, and be sure to take the time to enjoy a few others as well.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
The Sun and Water
The Glow of Light and Water
I was enchanted by that big yellow ball in the sky and what it did to the scene of people and pavement and water; this is another in the series of photos from the Three Rivers Arts Festival. The photos above and below were taken through the spray that blew off the fountain over the water, and the sun is refracted through all those flying droplets, some of them landing on my camera lens. The blending of color from white hot to pale yellow to orange to red in the sun is pulled apart into a pattern that I didn’t notice at first until I started playing around with the RAW photos. I ended up not modifying them at all, I liked them just as shot, including a few others that are kind of abstract, shot through the fountain spire and fans.
The photo above shows a man and a little girl walking hand in hand, and I took a few shots as they walked past the yellow path on the water made by the glowing sun. The little girl stopped to point at something and the man paused.
The photo below is blurred, and that was unintentional—it was the first one I took as the two walked toward the path of light and my camera was finding its focus on the droplets of water flying around me, but I like the softened effect, and also the fact they are just stepping into the path.
Entering The Sun’s Path
In the photos below, I intentionally shot with the sun shining into the fountain, trying to capture the little gold droplets as the water fell from the spire along with just tiny hints of the landscape beyond.
Fountain Spray
Catching a few droplets falling, and one person through the opening.
Below, a little more abstract as the sun touches one thing after another.
Fountain Abstract
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
Sunset, Old St. Luke’s
Sunset, Old St. Luke’s
Say what you will about winter and snow, but the combination makes for dramatic sunsets.
This is the Revolutionary-era churchyard of Old St. Luke’s Church in Scott Township, PA, the first Christian church established west of the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. It was originally a native American lookout place on a bluff above the Catfish Path, which we call Chartiers Creek. I’ve canoed past this place on the creek, and visited this site when the church was closed when I was a child, though now it is restored.
I used a wide-angle lens on my camera that is not made for it, but fits well enough that I can take a good photo with it. I’m glad to have a new piece of equipment.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Winter Vegetables
Winter Vegetables
One brief stripe of sun
last chance
before sunset,
the pause to smile
when leaving,
turns onions and potatoes
to bronze, rubies and gold.
Another new poem, like the Winter Sunset haiku. Perhaps it is the sunset in these dark days that is so inspiring.
poem © 2014 bernadette e kazmarski
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Last Day of the Year
Last Day of the Year
This photo hardly captures the essence of this stunning sunset, but I’m glad I caught at least this much of it, taken on the last day of December, 2005.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
A Winter Sunset
Winter Sunset
Soft colorful sky
soaring, trees black rough earth
bound; winter sunset.
poem © 2013 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Solstice
“Solstice”, pastel, 6″ x 6″ © B.E. Kazmarski
This painting is indeed from the Winter Solstice about a decade ago. As the sun began to set on a zero-degree day with a foot or more of snow the light was so beautiful that I took off in my car with my camera and art supplies. At the top of the hill the gentle pink and coral tones of the sunset melded with the blue of dusk on the field of unbroken snow at the old Christmas tree farm, one of my favorite spots. It was too cold to draw outside since I can’t wear gloves and would soon be dropping my pastels in the snow, so I positioned my car on a convenient side road and sketched this in my front seat. As it does sometimes, the sun seemed to hang in the trees just before it disappeared: solstice, “sun-stand-still”. It’s just a little thing, 6″ x 6″, one of my favorites, especially now that the place is gone to development. It became the inspiration for an exhibit I hosted in 2004, “Winter White”.
And this painting, which I’ve always loved so much, has a wonderful home with a friend who also loves it very much.
If you are interested in a print of this painting, please contact me.
Flying Into the Sunset
Flying Into the Sunset
Fine snow in the air just after a snow squall softens the sunset as a blue jay is silhouetted against the light show.
This is taken from the same spot as the red sunset from a few days ago. Each sunset is beautiful in its own right.
Rich Winter Sunset
Rich Winter Sunset
The light was fleeting but breathtaking, the little lights of streets and houses set in the velvet of valley in darkness, the tree branches, buds already swelling, silhouetted in deep indigo against the scarlet of the end of day.
I saw it happening as I sat at my desk and ran to the top of the hill, almost too late.
Night Falls
Night Falls
A slight break in the heavy overcast at dusk, a slight wind in the upper branches.
Good Night Little Town
“Good Night Little Town”
Tonight’s sunset reminded me of this photo I took several years ago from a ridge above Carnegie PA. It’s one of my favorite places to observe the sunset or incoming storms, and the valley includes nearly all of Carnegie. In this view you can see the snow-covered rooftops of houses, businesses and industrial buildings with a slight violet glow and the winding course of Chartiers Creek reflecting the pale aqua of the sky as it meanders through town and the sun slowly sets on a bitter cold winter evening. Tonight’s sunset looked like this, even down to the snow on the rooftops, but I couldn’t get to this vantage point in time to get the photo. Still, I wanted to share this moment; I’ve never posted this image on Today before.
“Good Night Little Town” is one of 14 images of Carnegie PA in my exhibit, “Carnegie Painted”
The Last Day of the Year
The last day of the year goes out blazing.
I always have to close the year with my absolute favorite sunset photo, from December 31, 2004, taken from the top of my street.
Today 