That night I had put my OR Basic Bivy on a small granite sand flat between some low boulders. It was near a few foxtail pines that were not in the way of my view south to watch the Milky Way. It was a clear silent night with the fat sliver of a moon coming up late in the wee hours. Although a few mosquitoes were still out at dusk, within an hour they had all retired to their leafy safety down canyon so I didn't bother with my bivy netting. And I was far too alpine to expect seeing a bear so slept soundly.
I woke up that morning about 4:30am. Although I don't have an alarm clock or watch alarm, most mornings I am always rather certain to wake up as soon as the first birds start chirping which is usually when the eastern horizon just begins to brighten a good hour before astronomical sunrise. Thus grope about for my PT Yukon HL led headlamp and eyeglasses. The second thing I did was put my wool sock, fleece jacket, and Levi's on in order to get those clothes warm inside my sleeping bag before I'd have to face the cool morning. However I noticed it wasn't too cool maybe the high 40s. Next I started heating some water boiling on my new Whisperlite which roars like a blast furnace so that took just a couple minutes. I tossed in a package of Nestlies chocolate milk mix.
By 4:50am I had downed that and was feeling excited about the approaching day. Since I was camped in the area I would be shooting in the morning, I left my view camera atop the big Gitzo tripod overnight. I was glad the air was relatively calm though expected a slight sumping night breeze off the peak channeling across the lake and down the canyon. So about 5am I tossed in a Ziplock full of granola and wandered over to the nearby lake outlet.
I'd sized up the outlet bay with its rocks sticking out of the water the day before but expected to refine that while actually standing there with dawn rising. Of course I move about trying to isolate each silhouetted element so the overall geometry appears most pleasing. Its such a pleasure to be a photographer experiencing something like this and then a few days later get to see the results on a big transparency. I've seen many many dawns over the years and there is certainly a lot of variation from day to day in the intensity of the various sky hues even in what seems are identical clear conditions. This morning I thought the purple phase was a bit weak. With my 150mm Nikkor lens on and a Fuji Provia 100F Quickload shoved in front of my ground glass, I waited hoping it might strengthen but at one point just actuated the shutter release cable below when I felt the peak color would begin to wane. Although the below image is rather nice, I don't expect to market it because when I put such an image on my web page index it has to be exceptional instead of simply good. In Photoshop I could easily jack up the saturation so the yellow and purple hues looked very impressive but in my body of work per my honest style, I never do that. I know I'll get a better image soon because I'm out in the high country like this alot. By the way the following exposure was the one above maybe a half hour later after the sun rose.
