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When we visited Christmas Island, we also had a chance to stay on Cocos (Keeling) Islands for a couple of days on the way back. This territory consists of two atolls made up of 27 small coral islands, of which only two – West Island and Home Island – are inhabited. Home Island is where most of the local populations leaves, while West Island is where the airport is located and where most of the tourist accommodation can be found. In contrast to Christmas Island, which is a lot more rugged and wild in nature, Cocos Islands are like small tropical pieces of paradise with beautiful beaches and palm trees everywhere. There are a lot of shallow coves and lagoons around to enjoy the crystal clear waters, and the atmosphere is very relaxed and peaceful.
This was our wind down from a much more active stay at Christmas Island, so this time we only travelled between Home and West Islands and explored them by walking and riding bicycles. West Island is only about twelve kilometres in length and around half a kilometre in width. It is easy just to walk from one end of the island to the other and there were great spots to dip into the water along the way. Our accommodation was about 100m from the airport. It does not get much more compact than that. There are only two regular flights a week, with the odd additional supply and emergency flights, so there was no issue with aircraft noise.
Our first evening turned out to be the best one for sunset photography with just the kind of atmosphere and light which one associates with places like this. Calm coast, beautiful light and clouds, great sunset colours, and palm trees to complete the picture. This was a photo just asking to be taken. We only just ventured out for a quick stroll to discover the surroundings and therefore I had not time to specifically plan and find a spot for the sunset. I looked quickly around to pick what seemed like an interesting place and took a few wider and more zoomed in photos. Originally, I wanted to find a lone palm tree to use it as a silhouette but I also liked this framed view of the sunset very much.
Because of the trees, I did not use any attached graduated glass filters for this photo. Instead, I bracketed exposures and merged them all together in post processing. I also cleaned up the foreground just a bit from tree debris laying on the ground and removed a couple of small poles, which did not add anything to the scene. A bit of quick work on the contrast and tones, and the photo was looking as good as the evening felt back on the day. It was just such a perfect moment to experience on a tropical island.
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