Looks pretty, feels ugly

The West is on fire. I knew about the California fires, but I somehow ignored the fires raging through Oregon and, to a lesser extent, Washington. On a walk the other day I left my apartment thinking it was a beautiful day, and then I saw that the Space Needle was obscured by an ugly haze.

I stupidly thought it was smoke from the California fires. I just read somewhere that Oregon estimates that 500,000 people have been forced to evacuate in the face of the fires. Incredible and heart-breaking.

Charlie Warzel is one of my favorite writers. He has a good opinion piece in the New York Times about Western fires. I cancelled my subscription there a couple of months ago (switched to the L.A. Times), so I had to open up a couple of different browsers to get a free article at the New York Times.

I walked up the hill to get some photos of the hazy Seattle skies. The photos are a little deceptive. Adjustments to the exposure triangle made for skies that were more orange than what my eyes were actually seeing. I'm not sure of the science behind that. I didn't alter any of the colors, just the exposure triangle. It felt like an x-ray, revealing a hidden illness.