OK, so technically, it’s a sunburst… but science tells me the sun is a star, so there. It’s a starburst. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The loose definition is a pattern of lines radiating from a central point of light. This week, you will find a small gallery of images that exhibit a starburst effect. The opening photo was captured along the Red River in Fargo, North Dakota.

The starburst in the photo above was captured at my favorite sunset spot in Buckeye, Arizona awhile back. Regular readers of this blog might recognize the shape of those nearby peaks. The radiating lines tend to appear near sharp edges that intersect the light, though not always, it seems. One tip for creating starbursts around a light source is to stop the lens down (higher f-stop number). The blades inside the lens create that intersecting sharp edge that appears to create the effect.

On South Mountain in Phoenix, a view to the west provided me with a starburst just before the sun set on a clear day. By the way, I hate sloped horizons and usually fix them. This slope, though, is not due to a tilted camera. It was on a tripod and leveled using a bubble level. The terrain happens to slope down to the right. So there.

Finally, one more image captured in Phoenix at the Heard Museum, an archive of Native American artifacts. This monument is to the Native American Warrior who fought as a soldier in the 20th century.

John Steiner