Tag Archives: Sunrise/Sunset

Close To Home

Another Sunrise…With A Bonus!

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Aerial demonstration of birds over Mountain Island Lake

I had to wait until this morning to have my first sunrise opportunity of the year.  The weather the last few days has basically been crap, but the forecast for this morning held promise.  Rather than set an alarm I told myself that if I woke up in time I would head out to see what I might find.  Usually when I try that approach I either wake up too early or too late, but this morning I woke up at 5:50 which was just about perfect.

Clouds lit by city lights from Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Launch.  No, that’s not a fire – Christmas Lights!

I arrived at the boat launch area right at 6:30 and was treated to some amber city-lit clouds low to the horizon and a clear sky with clouds above.  Pretty sweet!  No fog this time, but that was good for better reflections.  I got a few shots of that then aimed my camera at the causeway to catch some light trails.  There is a lot more traffic on a Monday morning than there was on the Sunday morning when I last visited!

Car trails on the causeway over Mountain Island Lake

The parking lot was completely deserted when I arrived, but the first boater showed about about 6:45.  He was well organized and put in quickly, but it was too dark to get anything usable.  The second boater arrived about 7:15, took his time futzing around with this gear and finally left the dock just as the sun was coming up.  That made for some good light on the boat as it putted through the No Wake zone.

Father-daughter morning fishing expedition
Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Launch

The bonus though was that, all of a sudden, I heard birds, lots of them.  Then overhead came a huge cloud of some kind of small black birds, probably starlings, grackles or similar black birds – hundreds of them!  And that cloud was followed by another, then another.  I have no idea how many of them there were, but there were a bunch.  Fortunately I had my camera set up for a wide angle shot of the water and sky, so I was able to catch a few frames with the birds, even though they were a bit blurry.  They were moving fast!

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Launch

So in addition to a pretty sunrise I got an impromptu air show! All in all it was a worthwhile visit and I got a few shots to start off the new year.  The weather looks like might deteriorate again the next few days but I’ll keep a lookout for another opportunity!

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Launch
Close To Home

A Morning Well Spent

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Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

I woke up this morning about 5:45.  A little early for me but not unusual.  As I lay in bed listening to the furnace cranking out some welcome BTUs, I started hearing this voice.  A voice that sounded hauntingly similar to the voice in a podcast I listen to.  This voice was saying, “ya know, this might just be one of those mornings where you’ll be glad you went out to make photographs.”

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp
Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

I reluctantly crawled out from under the covers, wandered down the hall to my computer, where the Weather Service told me that it was 25 degrees.  Ugh.  I almost got back into bed.  Reasoning that 25 degrees wasn’t any colder than Fort Collins, and remembering that the UP of Michigan is even colder, I resisted and got up.

Although I got rid of my down parka and Sorel boots when we left Ohio 26 years ago, I thankfully held on to some long underwear and wool socks, and I knew where to find them!  So I got out my stuff, gathered my gear and headed out.

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp
Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

I arrived at my newly-found sunrise spot at right about 6:30, an hour before sunrise and my preferred time to start taking morning photos.  The best color in the morning often happens long before anyone else has their camera ready, just like in the evenings the best color happens while most everyone has packed up and is heading off to dinner.

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp
Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

It was pretty dark when I got there, and the parking lot was empty except for one car.  The sky was clear with plenty of stars, or as many as we can usually see here in the suburbs of Charlotte.  As the light level came up I could see that there was some fog on the lake, and it was moving around in a very slight breeze.

The first boater arrived about 7:00 – an even heartier soul than me.  He offloaded his boat, nursed a sputtering outboard to life and headed off in search of some radioactive catfish.  A second boater came a few minutes later and much better luck with his engine.  He’s the one I was able to catch leading a wake out through the fog.

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp
Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

By the time the sun came up I had taken 144 frames and it was time to head home for coffee and a shower.  As I was putting my camera back in the car I realized I had frost on my tripod.  That’s about as cold as I’d like it to be, at least with my current gear!

Sunrise over Mountain Island Lake from the Riverbend Boat Ramp

Not bad for a winter Sunday morning.  Weather permitting I hope to be getting back out there again, real soon!

Travel

What Time Is It? How About Island Time?

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Moonrise the night before the “official” full moon.

As if we haven’t been traveling enough, Kathy & I decided to head for Hilton Head Island, SC to (hopefully) escape some of the election shenanigans.  Here at the beach we don’t care about a whole lot other than having enough to eat and drink.  Oh, and maybe taking a few pictures. 😉

Sunset colors looking toward Tybee Island, Georgia from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Sunrise colors looking toward Tybee Island, Georgia from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

We arrived Friday afternoon to crystal clear skies, awoke to same on Saturday morning but unfortunately are dealing with gale-force winds and a dense cloud layer Saturday evening.  So, no “full” moon for us.  Fortunately I caught the moon in it’s “pre-full” stage on Friday.  And to my way of thinking, since the full moon occurred this morning at 10:30, my “almost-full” moon is “as full” as the moon coming up this evening.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 🙂

Moonrise the night before the “official” full moon.
Photography

Timing is Everything

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Sunset From The Patio

Monte commented on my last post about having been inside having dinner when a nice sunset was happening.  As it turned out, Friday’s sunset here was also pretty nice, but I missed it for the same reason.  I’ve often told non-photographers that many of the best landscape photos are taken when people are either eating or sleeping.  Of course, Kathy’s version of that saying is that a sunset is best observed through a glass.  Albeit not a glass in the form of a camera lens. 😉

I had my camera all ready to go on Saturday night but it turned out to be a colorless mass of gray clouds.  But I left everything out in the office to I would be ready last night.  When the first hint of pink started in the sky I went inside, grabbed my gear and headed to the patio.  But in the course of that 1-2 minute window the pink faded as fast as it started.  I did manage to salvage a bit of the last remaining hints of color as it faded.  First photo and last photo were about 12 minutes apart.

Sunset From The Patio

Transmission towers aren’t as nice a subject as palm trees, but they aren’t drift fences, either. 🙂

Sunset From The Patio
Random Thoughts

Celebrating Our 2-Year “Retirement-versary!”

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Sunset from Morton Overlook, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I realized this morning that today is the date of our retirement 2 years ago…time flies when you’re having fun!  It’s amazing to realize that it has been two years. We’ve been very glad that we over-reached a bit on our travel through the first 21 or so months, since we’ve been making up for it the last few months.

The photo is from 2006, recently processed in Lightroom using more “modern” tools.

Photography

A Matter of Perspective

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Sunrise along the waterfront in Belhaven, North Carolina

One of the more recent additions to Lightroom is the “Transform” function, in particular the perspective correction tool.  I find myself making use of this tool a lot, as it “corrects” photos where I’m forced to shoot from an angle – side to side and up to down – and making them look normal.  I don’t generally use it to “cheat” but rather I like to use it when I don’t have a choice about where to stand.

Sunrise along the waterfront in Belhaven, North Carolina

I’ve been going back through some old unprocessed photos and came across a group of sunrise photos from 2010 in Belhaven, North Carolina.  One of the distinguishing features of the harbor in Belhaven is a break wall that separates the harbor from the larger Pungo River.  The break wall is a well-recognized landmark of this area, but the problem I always have with it is that it doesn’t run perpendicular to the places I photograph from.  As a result, there is always a perspective mismatch between the horizon line and the line of the breakwall.  They never looked right when I processed them, so I’ve always been hesitant to use them for anything.  Until now.

Sunrise along the waterfront in Belhaven, North Carolina

Looking at this photos, I wondered if the perspective correction in Lightroom could be used to “fix” the position of the breakwall so it looked “right” in my photos.  Lo and behold, it does!  There is a little bit of falloff in focus in the areas that are actually father away, but it’s hardly noticeable.  And yes, I could have done this a long time ago in Photoshop.  But that misses my point.  And of course, someone who lives there and is used to the view would likely recognize the change immediately.  But for most folks, they wouldn’t notice the difference.

I’ve attached a couple of photos as examples, including one “before & after composite.  I think it turns a photo that never looked quite right into one that looks pretty good for all but the pickiest few among us.  And chances are they don’t read this blog! 🙂

before-after
Random Thoughts

Cheaper Than Moving to Arizona

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Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Here in the southeast US, winter takes two forms.  The first is “the leaves are gone and it’s cold,” and the second is “OH !@#$%.” This coming weekend appears to be “OH !@#$%” and it isn’t even officially winter yet!  The forecast is calling for 8-12″ of snow and low temperatures in the 20s.  We’ll see, but it looks like the confidence is pretty high.  Yikes.

One of the things that Kathy & I have been talking about for this winter is what temperature to set the thermostat at.  Now that we’re home every day we don’t want to leave it set at 65 degrees like we did when we worked.  But we don’t want to keep it set too high, as we’d like to keep from blowing the gas bill out of the proverbial water.  So ‘what to do’ has been the question.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I have found myself somewhat more sensitive to the cold this year (yes, I know that it hasn’t gotten cold yet!).  While my philosophy has always been to make sure I am wearing adequate clothing before turning up the heat, I’ve been finding it necessary to resist turning it too high this year.

At one point I told Kathy – jokingly – that maybe we should think about moving to Arizona.  But at some point yesterday we decided that even if the gas bill doubled – which it won’t – it would still be cheaper than moving to Arizona!  Although I will admit to looking at cruises leaving this weekend to see if we could escape to the Caribbean!  But we opted to tough it out here at home, and turn up the thermostat if we need to.

Photography

Blurry Pictures

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Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

A technique that I love to use at the beach is motion blur.  This can take the form of long shutter speeds on a tripod, or panning the camera along the scene or with a moving wave.  It can convey a feeling of motion, simplify a busy scene or just look “pretty.”  It doesn’t work just anywhere, and I’ve become pretty good about knowing when to use it.

Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

I hadn’t tried using motion blur much this trip until I was reminded of it in a recent Instagram post by William Neill.  Bill originally inspired me to try using motion blur years ago, and his work continues to inspire me.

Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Last night while we waited to see if the moonrise would be visible, I tried using a slow shutter speed on the water, the sky and even some sea oats blowing in the wind.  A few of them came out OK, so I thought I would share.

Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina