SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEVER KNOW - 8 October 2013

Sunrise Near the Otter Cliffs - Acadia National Park, Maine, File #1312123
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Link to original image:

http://www.tom-hill.biz/Galleries/Scenics/Elsewhere-Japan-Plains-Maine/i-BPWwmNf/A
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I'm just completely a trip to Acadia National Park. I've been there before which is helpful when you're trying to find places to shoot. But, I'm not all the familiar with the terrain which means I'm not very sure about where to go to photographically maximize the weather conditions as they occur. Since I'm so new here there was a lot of "hunting and pecking" as they so going on. What that means is I was doing raw experimenting on exploring the park.

The other thing that complicated this trip is the park is officially closed due to the government shutdown. Theoretically you're not allowed to go anywhere on national park land. What that means in reality is there are a few barricades left here and there that really couldn't stop a kindergartner from getting by--i.e. all show and not much go. But, they're good enough to tell people "don't drive your cars past here." What that meant was a lot of the park was open if you were willing to walk/hike. A lot was not accessible if you weren't willing to walk/hike miles.

This image was taken next to the Otter Cliffs. I was there the morning prior and had limited success. The best image from the previous day would've been of the cruise ship passing through the just rising sun. It would've been the classic cliche image of sunrise with cruise ship except I didn't have the right lens to get that shot. Instead, I took less the incredible landscape photos of the beach and cliffs.

I decided to go back the very next morning for no other reason than to just try again. This time I brought my longer lens as backup. No, I didn't need it. But, the clouds were better as in they drifted to the east a ways the stopped well prior to the horizon to allow the sun to peek under.

After racing around to find the right composition and shooting lots of sample images to get the exposure right, I settled on this final image which is very dramatic. It's an high dynamic range capture (more than a couple of exposures merged together) with all the files put together in Photoshop.

The lesson here is even though I wasn't sure about what I was going to get, the weather cooperated to get me good results. Sometimes you just never know.

The corollary to this statement is "If you don't try you certainly aren't going to get anything."

Cheers

Tom

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