Day 13 of the 365 Project: Trying to Take Sunrise Photo Over Otisco Lake
Why Did I Take This Photo at Blue Hour on Otisco Lake?
According to the weather apps, the prediction was excellent for an amazing sunrise. I got up at 5:00 am to get ready, Caden was excited, the cloud cover looked great at home so I drove 30 minutes to Otisco Lake Preserve and walked down the steep hillside to the western shore.
I found a nice composition using the boulder covered with Zebra Mussels to balance out the trees on the right and played with the dog for a few minutes until it became light enough to shoot some shots.
Everything looked good 30 minutes before sunrise (that is when the photo above was taken) in the blue hour but not 10 minutes later a foggy cloud bank moved in blocking the gap under the clouds. In the photo, you can see the fog forming in the right corner of the lake.
So all of that to not get a good sunrise shot. The one above is the more colorful. I like the purple tones during the blue hour but my favorites are still when the clouds light up red when the sun breaks the horizon.
Still, it was great to get outside early and experience nature waking up. I heard a loon, there were mallards, geese, and teals flying by and many large fish jumping out of the lake. I also explored the shoreline. In the previous visits, the water was much higher, and impossible to walk the shoreline along the cliffs. The shale held many brachiopods, bivalves, crinoid stems, gastropods, and trilobite fossils.
It was a very enjoyable morning and now I won’t feel guilty if I take a nap later in the day!
