Posts in Category: sunrise

Yellowstone! Elk on the ridge

Elk: Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, September 2024 — We got to Mammoth Hot Springs early on our second full day in the park, specifically to photograph the Elk as the sun crested the mountains. Still early enough here so the sun was not even on the ridges above the springs, and this buck and doe are silhouetted against the semi dark sky. Sony a6700 with the Tamron 50-400 Di iii VC zoom at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my bird and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.

Yellowstone! First light

First light on the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs. I am finding the 75mm equivalent of the Tamron 50-400 to be a very useful landscape lens…especially the grand scale landscape of Yellowstone…and I have not found the need to switch the Sony a6700 from my Program mode bird and wildlife modifications to take landscapes. If the camera does not find a bird or animal, it reverts to normal focus and works just fine. Processed in Photomator.

Yellowstone! Early Morning Gardiner

From our first morning in Gardiner and Yellowstone. Up early to get into the park. The view across the Yellowstone from the Conoco parking lot. Sony a5100 with the E 10-18 f4 zoom at 15mm equivalent. Superior Auto. Processed in Photomator.

Dawn over the forests of Kibale

Chimpanzee Forest Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. HDR mode. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 125 @ f2.5 @ 1/60th. -1.3EV.

Winter Sunrise

It was, going by the images posted already on Facebook, a particularly glorious sunrise yesterday all across Maine. This is just from our back deck, looking out over the yard, with the fringe of icicles from our metal roof sliding down over the door. Beauty is where you find it…and a good thing that is in this year of limited mobility.  Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. Program mode with auto HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Nominal exposure: ISO 200 @ f2.5 @ 1/60th.

Snowy Dawn. Happy Sunday!

Snowy Egret at dawn. Merritt Island NWR, FL

Yeah…not that kind of snow 🙂 Still in Florida. First light on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in January, when the birds are in close to the road, is often spectacular. The birds are between you and the rising sun, and if you catch the light just right, the images glow. This Snowy Egret was feeding about as close to the road as a bird can get, and the light was right! 🙂

And there is something about being out when the day is young, catching the birds at their breakfast, that lends zest to day, and to life. We begin again, all over again, with the adventure! I think that is the key to living a life of the spirit in the flesh…every day is a new adventure…and no matter what comes, it will be, before it is over, good. Some days are a trial and some days are just full of blessing. Or maybe I should say: Some days we are blessed with trials, and some days we are just blessed. Most days, these days, I am simply blessed…enjoying the adventure. I look forward from the dawn of each day with hope, with expectation, with joy, and with thanksgiving…I may not always show it…but I do. In a little over an hour I will leave for maybe my last early morning circuit of Blackpoint Drive for this trip. What good thing does God in the spirit have in store for today? Happy Sunday!

Merritt Island Dawn

Dawn over the lagoons at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, FL

We were out at dawn yesterday to get in a few hours of birding and photography before the vendor area at the Space Coast Birding Festival opened for the day…so early that the gate to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive was still closed when we got there. So…we went looking for the sunrise, or rather for a sunrise shot. This is an in camera HDR take over the lagoons along the main road west of the Visitor Center. You can see a corner of the Launch Facility at Kennedy Space Port peaking out behind the trees on the horizon just left of center.

Sony HX400V at 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/125th @ ISO 80 @ f3.2. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.

Bosque Sunrise Sunday

Sunrise at Bosque del Apache NWR

Sunrise at Bosque del Apache NWR

Just a week ago, last Sunday morning, I was standing along the edge of the ponds on Route 1 headed into Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, before dawn, waiting on the sun and the birds. The congregation had gathered. The parking lots were full, and all up and down the dyke between the road and the ponds the faithful, photographers and birders, stood hushed and expectant. As it was the weekend of the Festival of the Cranes, there were more visitors than usual…just folks who had traveled down from Albuquerque early…many of them making a once a year pilgrimage to Bosque for the dawn and the birds…kind of like the way the congregation swells around Christmas and Easter in any church. (You can always tell a visitor…they have no binoculars and they are attempting to photograph the Geese and Cranes in the half-light with phones, God bless them 🙂 We stand on the dyke, and the Cranes stand as darker shadows in the shallow ponds between us the mesa and the mountains behind. They too are waiting on the sun. Behind us, across the road and the rail-road track, well away at the other side of the valley of the Rio Grande, the sun itself is climbing up to crest the eastern mesas, seeking the open air between the land and a shelf of clouds along the horizon, filling the sky with gold. As a photographer, I am attempting to take it all in…the whole experience…and I spin there on the alter, between the sunrise itself and the waiting birds. All up and down the dyke I see other worshipers like me caught in the same liturgical dance, some just rotating in place and some, the long lens folk, dancing around the fixed point of their tripods. The birders, more refined in their habits, largely ignore the rising sun and concentrate on the birds, punctuating the dance with stillness. There is a hush among the gathered, but it contrasts with the continual chatter and mutter…the rising chorus of caw and quack and honk…of the cranes and the few geese and ducks among them as they quicken with the coming day.The visitors among us, like visitors to any congregation, are not quite sure what to do. Many watch us as much as they do the sunrise and the birds, seeking clues to what brings out the faithful in the dawn. Some put us to shame in their devotion…this being a once a year event…they are visibly transported. They could not lift their binoculars or cameras if they had them for the wonder. This dawn there is no real climax to the celebration. The sun slides golden above the mesa. Light strikes across the water to illuminate the Cranes as they begin to think of flying out for the day. Far off against the gilded sky large flocks of Geese arise and wing. In moments it is day. The Bosque dawn has come and gone. Slowly, with a lot of chatter now, the congregation begins to disperse and head back to parking lots and cars, stamping feet, thinking of coffee and hot chocolate, and the reminder of their Sunday on the refuge. They will drive the tour loop a few times. Stop at the Flight Deck, the Decks on the far side, and perhaps catch the Snow Geese flocks on the ag fields in full panic, when an Eagle puts them all up in the air at the same time. It will be a good day, fulfilling the promise of the Bosque dawn. And next year, we will all be back, God willing, even the visitors among us. Happy Sunday!

🙂

Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom and Phototastic on a Windows tablet.

Gloucester Dawn

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Bass Rocks, Gloucester Massachusetts. Dawn. I spent parts of two days with a small group of German birders who had come to Gloucester looking for Snowy Owls and winter ducks. We were up and out at first light, before breakfast actually, and on the rocks beyond Bass Rocks looking for King Eider soon after. This view looks out north-east into the Gulf of Maine past Thacher Island’s Twin Lights. As it happens, the line of cloud along the front was passing out to sea, and we had a few hours of sunshine before the next front moved over us. (We did not find King Eider…but later in the morning and further north, north of Rockport, we did find a nice pod of Harlequin Ducks…which made my German friends happy! For me the sunrise was enough.)

Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. Sunset/sunrise mode. ISO 200 @ 1/100th @ f16. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.

All in a Day in the Backyard.

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From dawn to dusk in our backyard yesterday. From an awesome -11 degree sunrise to a 5 PM blizzard. We do it right in Maine 🙂 The way life is supposed to be. (And as I get the snowblower out of the basement to deal with 8 inches of fresh snow this morning I am thinking, “yeah, maybe not so much 🙂

Still, it is good discipline to find the beauty where you are, and to celebrate it. Keep those eyes open and those cameras clicking! It is good for the soul.

Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. Sunrise: ISO 1000 @ 1/160th @ f4. Blizzard: ISO 500 @ 1/160th @ f4. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver, and assembled in Pixlr Express on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.