Picture of the Week: #38

[taken during week running from 17/09 to 23/09]

I take a lot of photos of sunsets, although I'm not entirely sure why. It could be because I'm so rarely awake in time to see the sunrise, I suppose, and the fact that they're so often really beautiful must also be a factor. This photo was taken on what was, technically, the last day of summer, and the weather obliged with some lovely golden sunlight in the late afternoon.

It's also possible that sunsets are so popular as photographic subjects because of their mythological/metaphorical connotations. The idea of the sun leaving us maybe makes us want to pay more attention to it as it sinks; its use as a metaphor for practically anything else ending is pretty widespread, too. Given the amount of attention paid to the sun throughout history - look at this handy list of sun gods - maybe it's become culturally ingrained to look at it and its effects. Just hopefully not literally looking at it. I'm pretty sure no culture has ever had a god of retinal scarring.