It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’m sorry about that. I’ve done some fun stuff lately, but never have the time to share it with everyone.

Well, this time is an exception. This adventure was just too great not to share with everyone. This last Saturday, 04/21/2007 to be exact, I set out on a trip that I won’t soon forget.

First, a little background. My wonderful wife puts up with my endless photography every week. I’m sure she’s getting tired of it by now. But a while back she decided to create some calendars to give out as gifts at Christmas time. She’s really into scrap booking and paper craft type projects. Well, she decided to use some of our past pictures as the top page of each month. Well, we came up a bit short in the shots she wanted for a few of the months and a couple of months ago she gave me a list of some shots she wanted me to take. I think I’ve taken care of 1 or 2 of them, but the one I really wanted to tackle was a sunrise. She planned on using it for April for Easter. The whole Christ rising thing if you didn’t get the connection. Well, I’ve been waiting for the right day to try and capture the picture and it just hadn’t arrived yet.

Well, that was about to change. Friday night I looked at the weather and noticed that there was a chance of it getting cloudy in the morning. That night it was clear, as we had just spent a couple of hours down at the lake taking pictures for another photo assignment that I was working on.

(more pics here) I set the alarm when I went to bed for 5:00 am and thought I would get up and see if the weather was cooperating. The alarm sounded and I looked out the window. It was a nice clear morning, but too dark to tell if we had any small high-level clouds. So I decided to go give it a try. I made my coffee and bagel and headed out the door about 5:15. I made my way to Bayview and notice that there were indeed some nice clouds off to the east. Pefect.

I found a spot that overlooked the lake and set up shop. Well, the next hour was nothing short of amazing. The sky became clearer and the clouds turned colors, and town was still fast asleep. I snapped away hoping to produce some HDR images for the my wife and ended up snapping about 200 or so before the morning was over.

Here’s the one I was after.

The morning was perfect. The sunrise was so spectacular. I got carried so carried away that I forgot to put on my gloves I brought with me and ended up freezing my hands to death. But it was so worth it. After the sun was above the mountains I packed up my gear and decided to walk through town to see what else I could find in the nice early morning light. I had set out to take a picture of our local town store for our photo assignment this week, and found it in just the right light.

I snapped a few other pictures and ended taking a nice photo stroll through town. You can see the results on my Flickr site. I have a whole set (here) dedicated to my morning.

I had so much fun. I’m still buzzing from the joy of the morning and getting out to take so many pictures. I really think a lot of them turned out very well. I hope you agree. So, if you were to take my advice, get up early and capture this great part of the day. It won’t be a day I forget any time soon.

Happy Shooting.