Ode to the L.A. Sunset

For those of us who grew up on the East Coast, to see the sun set over an ocean is a transfixing event. If you lived within an hour or two of the Atlantic Ocean, you could enjoy a sunrise over water. But you had to find a bay at the back of a beach town, or a very large lake, to watch the sun duck below the waterline. It’s far more dramatic and mesmerizing to witness the sun as it slides down the sky, to be submerged in the boundless waters of the Pacific. Occasionally, when the workday ends here on the Del Rey bluffs, I drive to Vista del Mar to see la puesta del sol. To arrive just in time, with a few moments of sunlight remaining, feels like a gift. Those few seconds — they’re too few — when the sun kisses the water and then sinks below the horizon are like the end of a season. The daylight is gone, and with it a day that will never be again. There may be another one tomorrow, I think to myself, but this was today’s only sunset.

Here are some images of sunsets past, sent to us by our readers.—The Editor.