The song America the Beautiful talks about “purple mountain majesty,” and the Arizona license plates depict mountains that are indeed purple. But of course it isn’t the mountains that are purple; it is the clouds and sky.
Certainly for pure dramatic effect, nothing beats a Western sky at sunset. But my frequent trips there as a kid taught me to look upward at both dawn and dusk, wherever I might be. And sure enough, I have found myself taking sunrise and sunset pictures in crowded cities and wide open deserts alike, in the West and in the East. Sometimes even right out my bedroom window, or through the front windshield.
