I was born in Compton California. I lived in Southern California, and spent most of my spare time at the beaches in the area. As you can imagine I saw a lot of ocean sunsets. It was during that time that I received my first camera. It was a four by four inch dark brown box, with a tiny little lens. It wasn't much, but it did take pictures. My parents realized that I loved taking pictures, so I didn't have to use the antique brown box for very long before they bought me a camera that was a little better, and easier to use. We also took a lot of driving vacations all over the West, including Canada, and Mexico. While my family, and I did take pictures of the usual tourist sights, I still had a particular love of sunsets. I remember the first time I took a picture directly at the setting sun. My father said, "That won't come out. It'll be over exposed. You're just wasting film." I didn't always listen to everything my father and mother told me, so I kept on taking those over exposed pictures. The first couple of pictures weren't great, but the colors sure were. The Yellows, Oranges, Pinks, and Reds looked great to me. That was it. I was hooked.

While my family took pictures of us, the kids, and other points of interest, I was up early taking pictures of the sunrises, and would ask them to pull over just so I could get another picture of a sunset. If they didn't, I'd just shoot through the car window. At age fifteen, we all moved to Lake County (a total culture shock), and we didn't take those vacations anymore. I guess my folks figured we were on vacation all the time now. Taking pictures slowed, and nearly stopped. I left high school to join the Air Force at age eighteen, got married, started a family, and started taking pictures of the kids instead of sunsets. The Air Force sent me all over the world. I had long stays in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Washington D.C., Cypress, and Turkey. Short stays in Athens, Greece, Barcelona, Spain, and Hamburg, Germany. After the service, and a few changes in my life, I started traveling again mostly to Baja California. In Baja, I began to rediscover the beauty in a sunrise, and sunset.

Of all the places I've been, and seen, nowhere is more beautiful than what I see right out my back door. You see, I live on the oldest, fresh water lake in North America. It’s an amazing place called Clear Lake, in Lake County, California. Nearly every evening, since I moved back here six years ago, I have seen the most incredible sunrises, and sunsets in the world. It quickly inspired me to pick up a camera again. I started taking pictures almost every day. They would get used as my computer background, sent in emails to show off where I live, or even shown to a few close friends, but they were mostly for me. Friends would tell me that I should try to sell them. I'd just laugh, and say sarcastically, yeah right. I guess my friends finally got to me, and one day I decided that these sunsets were just too beautiful to keep for myself. I have never considered myself a photographer, just a man who loves scenery, especially sunrises, and sunsets. Stacey W. Sauer