The Joy of Sunrise

Grand View, Sunrise at Grandview Point, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/18
1/3 second

Most people who rise before the sun do it because they have to. And sadly, because we’ve been so conditioned by a lifetime of rising for school and work, rushing to “pressing” obligations, the joys of early mornings never seem to outweigh the pleasure of staying in bed.

While I won ‘t pretend that I truly relish a 4:30 a.m. alarm, not only have some of my favorite images come before the sun (or just after), some of my very best memories have as well. I mean, what’s not to love about witnessing twilight’s soft, cool light slowly warmed by the approaching sun, or breathing in the cleanest air of the day, and simply being alone with the purest sounds and smells of nature?

For those who haven’t learned to appreciate the joy of the pre-sunrise world, let me help you reset your bias with a few tips for making early mornings happen:

• For the full experience, plan to be at your spot at least 45 minutes before your chosen location’s “official” (flat horizon at that latitude and longitude) sunrise. The eastern horizon will already be brightening noticeably by then, but you’ll be early enough to see the brighter stars gradually snuffed out. (This is for mid-latitude locations—twilight starts early and lasts longer in the high latitudes, and starts later and ends sooner in the low latitudes.)
• Get organized before going to bed. Lay out your clothes, assemble your gear, make sure everything’s charged, and prime the coffee maker. You do all this so you can…
• Set your alarm for the absolute minimum time necessary to get ready. Trust me: Your commitment will be much stronger at bedtime than when the alarm blares—the less time you have to delay, the less the chance you’ll lose your resolve to the cozy warmth of your bed. A last-minute alarm also gives you the maximum amount of sleep possible. And don’t forget, one of the best things about being up when no one else is up and it’s dark is that it really doesn’t matter how you look.
• Under no circumstances use the snooze button on your alarm. Rising early is like ripping off a Band-Aid—the sooner you get it over with, the happier you’ll be; the longer you drag it out, the harder it is.

Of course the joy of sunrise isn’t limited to photography—in fact, the more you can consider any images a bonus, the more you’ll appreciate the experience itself. And ironically, in the long run, lowering your photography expectations will result in more great images. That’s because when your prime goal isn’t photography, you’ll go out even when the conditions don’t look good, and put yourself in position for Nature’s frequent surprises.

Three Strikes, Lightning and Rainbow from Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon

Some of my most memorable sunrises have happened on mornings I’d have skipped if I’d relied solely on weather reports, or on the way things looked at bedtime or when I peeked out the window after the alarm. I could cite many examples, but the perhaps the most memorable came the morning at Grand Canyon when I captured (among many, many images) three simultaneous lightning bolts and small rainbow fragment in a single, 1/3 second frame.

The weather report for this morning had called for clear skies, with no chance of rain. With photography expectations low, Don Smith and I headed out to meet our group for the workshop’s final shoot, simply looking forward the sensory pleasures of a Grand Canyon sunrise. So boring was the forecast, I’d considered just leaving my camera in the room, and several in the group opted to stay in bed. But on the walk to Bright Angel Point, we could see the lightning illuminating the darkness above the South Rim and quickened our pace. Turns out there was no reason to rush as for the next two hours we enjoyed a lightning show started in the east and slowly moved westward along the rim, and was still going when the storm ultimately crossed the canyon and moved out of our view.

Last Tuesday my alarm woke me 4:10 a.m., and with no clouds in the forecast, I won’t say that sunrise surprise wasn’t on my mind as my feet hit the floor. And while we didn’t get lightning, we did get enough clouds to catch sunrise color above Grandview Point. For most of the morning I was content to just enjoy the peaceful ambiance, but as the sun approached I returned to my car to get my camera bag.

I’d set my sights on a solitary tree standing sentinel atop a limestone pedestal a hundred yards or so down the trail, and saw an opportunity use it as the third point in a visual triangle that would also include the Colorado River and the rising sun. And with an opening on the horizon, I figured I may as well turn the sun into a sunstar.

Because the sun rises surprisingly quickly and the ideal window for a sunstar is measured in seconds, not minutes, I wanted to be completely set up and ready before the sun arrived. After a little moving around and zooming through my viewfinder, I decided on a composition with my 24-105 lens that used a focal length of around 50mm. Unfortunately, while the 24-105 is my most frequently used lens, it’s not the best sunstar lens, especially zoomed out to 50mm.

For a good sunstar, I went with f/18, which was also was helpful for my composition’s challenging depth of field. I pulled out my hyperfocal app and determined that at f/18 and 50mm, the hyperfocal distance was about 15 feet. The tree was about 20 feet away, but since hyperfocal data uses old parameters (based on 8×10 print viewed from about a foot), when possible I try to factor in a buffer that increases my margin for error. In this case I knew focusing 30 feet away would still put the tree well within the zone of “acceptable sharpness,” while giving me more distant sharpness.

The problem was, there was nothing in my frame that was 30 feet away, so before the sun appeared, I popped my camera off the tripod and pointed at a tree outside my frame that I guessed was about 30 feet away. I then magnified the resulting image in my viewfinder to verify the front-to-back sharpness.

Join me at the Grand Canyon

Sunrise Joy

Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE

Morning Glory, Point Imperial Sunstar, Grand Canyon

Autumn Moonset, Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton NP

Grand View, Sunrise at Grandview Point, Grand Canyon

New Zealand Rocks, Lake Pukaki

Before Sunrise, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, California

Valley Fog, Tunnel View, Yosemite

Rise and Shine, Mather Point, Grand Canyon

Twilight Moon, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley

Sunrise Mirror, Mono Lake

Before the Sun, South Tufa, Mono Lake

Sunrise, Drake’s Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore

Big Moon, Mt. Williamson, California

Surf’s Up, Puna Coast, Hawaii

Moonset, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, California

Sunrise Gem, Diamond Beach, Iceland

Spring Sunrise, Memaloose Overlook, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Infinity, Lake Wanaka, New Zealand

Cradled Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite

Alpenglow, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra

Color and Light, Grand Canyon Lightning, Bright Angel Point

Lunar Kiss, Crescent Moon With Half Dome and Sentinel Dome, Yosemite

Three Strikes, Lightning and Rainbow from Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon North Rim

Moonlight on the Water, Garrapata Beach, Big Sur

First Light, Yosemite Valley

Dawn’s Early Light, Mt. Whitney, Alabama Hills, California

Glisten, Diamond Beach, Iceland

2015

Golden Sunrise, Puna Coast, Hawaii Big Island

Sunrise Sunstar, Grandview Point, Grand Canyon

Dance of the Veils, Tunnel View, Yosemite

Whitney Arch Moonset, Alabama Hills, California

Frozen Sunrise, Kirkjufell, Iceland

Big Sun, Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon

Tropical Sunrise, Hawaii Big Island

Sunrise, Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney, Eastern Sierra

Moonrise, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe