It has been way too long since I ventured down to our local beach to take in the salty sea air, wet sand between my toes and a gorgeous Henley Beach sunset. Even longer since I captured one.

With Adelaide’s current crazy post Christmas weather, ie 40 degrees one day and 20 degrees the next, we have been getting some pretty amazing cloud formations and some gorgeous sunsets. I had a pretty good clue that tonight was going to be one of them as Jennifer and I headed down to the beach close to sunset.

A lesson I never seem to learn is to give myself time to find parking, especially during holidays on warm balmy evenings! We found a park eventually but by the time I got set up on the beach I got five shots before the sun disappeared for the night behind the cloud-bank on the horizon. Luckily for us that was just the start of the show, not the end.

For the next 30 minutes we watched the clouds above us, and in every direction to the horizon, capture the sunlight refracted, bent then diffracted through the Earth’s thin atmosphere creating a stunning ever changing patchwork of golden tones. I really did not know which direction to point my camera in. It was spectacular across the entire sky.

Resorting to an old favorite view I pointed the camera out to sea and towards the jetty and waited. To my delight this young girl dragging a small boy though the baby surf made this another Henley Beach moment.

Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Henley Beach Moment’, 1/640s f/11 ISO160 15mm