From the Archives: Sunrise in Bar Harbor
It’s finally beginning to feel like spring in Maine. We’ve shed our winter coats in the hopes of 50 degree weather and sunshine, which, when it happens, is quite a treat; more often than not, though, it seems a winter coat has simply been replaced by a rain coat. April showers bring May flowers, right?
Life has been pretty busy in the last two weeks, so I feel like most of my free time has been occupied by everything but photography. While I haven’t had much time to shoot, I have been slowly (but surely) getting my archives in order. Just about everything has been moved to its proper home; now, all that’s left is to deal with the duplicates! I’ve also started to learn my way around Lightroom. I’m hoping it provides a superior kewording/tagging experience than other programs I’ve used in the past. Since other programs have always been somewhat lacking or cumbersome, I’ve never properly tagged my photos. If I don’t start, though, I’ll never be able to find anything.
I gave Lightroom a trial run the other day when I imported batches of photos from their newly organized folders. From there, I began setting up new keyword categories, adding options to each. I started to go through the images, keywording as I went, when I found photos from a vacation to Bar Harbor last fall. I hadn’t actually looked through most of them when they were imported, so it was neat to finally have a minute to look through the whole lot. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I thought I had (note to self: next time, take more!).
On the morning we were heading home, I woke up early with the intention of photographing the sunrise. We happened to luck out with our room reservation – it had a beautiful view and a private balcony which was perfectly situated, facing the islands. There was already a little sliver of golden light on the horizon when I woke. It was a balmy 36 degrees, not accounting for wind chill and the heaviness of the air after having rained the previous day. I bundled up. (At this point, I realized what a genius I was: I had left my tripod home.) As I huddled out on the balcony, snapping a few test shots, I watched other guests on their morning walks. A few came prepared with cameras – the smart ones even had tripods. (It’s a good thing it was windy – that way, they couldn’t hear me cursing my stupidity.) I used the railing from the balcony to stabilize, as needed. I made do. After about half an hour in the cold and the wind, I gave in and went back inside to warm up.
Below is the shot that I processed the other day. It certainly was a beautiful morning, despite the cold, and an amazing way to start the day. The clouds glowed pink and purple as the sun rose directly out of the middle of the island on the left. After about an hour, the sun had burned off any remaining fog and haze, leaving us with bright blue skies and temperatures in the upper 50s. It always amazes me how what we might consider to be just an “ordinary” day can start as something so ethereal.
audrahatch 