I was inspired to take this series by a picture hanging in our hotel room. I'll post the then-and-now of that image later since it was towards the southern end of Ocean Drive and the Betsy Ross is at the north end.
The vertical framing of this shot has changes the overall exposure with the layer of cloud above the aircraft more dark and ominous looking. The sun is setting on the far side of the cloud wall with rays of sunlight streaking through the gaps in the clouds lighting them up like they're on fire while sheets of rain fall on the communities just inland of the coast.
But looking back I got this fantastic view of the sunlight from the setting sun streaming through the gap in the clouds with sheets of rain from the storm falling just inland from the coast. I once again turned to my Canon S100 to capture the scene. From the features on the ground, the aircraft would have been over or just south of Eisenhower, Lehigh Acres, Florida. You can make out the Gulf coast and the southern end of Estero Bay between the two sheets of rain in the center of the photo.
The cruising speed of a Boeing 737 is a shade over 500 miles per hour (all things being equal) so we'd traveled about eight miles closer to the cloud wall. Add to that the cloud wall was moving west, towards us and that yields the change in the cloud shapes between the two photo-sets.
As we approached the west coast of Florida I saw a wall of cloud to the south-east, pretty much aligned with the coast, illuminated from the setting sun to the west. I shot several frames of the scene with my Canon S100.
The Betsy Hotel has a neat rooftop deck for guests. From the loungers you can look out over the top of the palm trees to the ocean. Like the rooms…