Dawn’s Early Light

This time of year the sun rises quite late, for me anyway, and this made it easy to get out to the wildlife refuge and hike up to an overlook before the sun crested the eastern horizon. There were sadly no clouds, so there was no predawn color-show to be there for, but I knew the valley would get a lot of nice light for the first hour after sunrise. What I didn’t know was that the Indian grass would be so tall and golden as I hadn’t been out here for a month or so.

Arriving just minutes before the sun peeked over the horizon gave me a chance to study the scene. I had only been up here for sunrise on one previous occasion and I generally made a mess of my photographic compositions on that day. On this occasion I really wanted to focus on two things: the line of the hiking trail through the scene and the golden side light hitting he hillside contrasting with the shadows. Thus below you see my first set up shot.

The grass was so golden and beautiful, I lost all concern about the lack of clouds in the sky. I used a wide angle lens pointed downward focusing on the landscape and allowing just enough sky for the sun to dazzle the scene. In one composition (above) I have the hiking trail to the side of the photo, sort of opposite the sun in vying for the viewer’s attention and hopefully leading you to the distant hillside to see the trail continue to wind across the valley. In another composition (below), I was more centered on the trail making it a clear leading line into the scene. I tend to like the above image better; what do you think?

These images were shot wide at 24mm and 20mm respectively. This is one of the best lenses I have, but still shooting almost directly into the rising sun does result in some lens flare, though I don’t think it ruins the photos. I was also shooting at an aperture of f/16 to maximize the depth of focus, which accounts for the sunburst effect that I knew I would get. And lastly, these are both merges of 5 exposures to get the color of the bright sun and the darker landscape.

I continued my hike into the distance, occasionally stopping to take a photo. As the trail gets to the hill in the distance, it turns to the east and heads down into the valley and up the opposite ridge. This is a fantastic trail for wildflowers in the spring and the long grasses in the fall provided they haven’t done a burn.

The image below is shot about 15 minutes later looking toward the northeastern hillside. There is much more light at this point and I was able to stow away my tripod and shoot handheld for the rest of my hike. I struggle with using the hiking trail as a foreground element as it so quickly gets swallowed up by the grasses. What caught my eye in this scene was the striated look of the distant hillside in the side-light but I don’t think it photographed all that well.

Finally I made it across the valley to the opposite side that still had a lot of shade. I walked around here for a while, but I always seem to be drawn to the old tree stumps that seem to dot the landscape out here. I think the periodic burns keep these trees from getting too established, keeping the grass and shin oak habitat intact for the protected black-capped vireos that summer here. They also make for a rustic foreground element suggesting the rugged nature of the landscape. I also like their texture in the early morning or late afternoon light. The area where this one sat had the ground still in shadow with the grasses poking up into the sunlight.

When I export these images to JPEG, I check them for picture quality and they look good, but I have noticed that they may have some banding showing in the sky in a browser. Not sure what is going on there. My images do not have that banding if you see it.

I don’t often feel like getting out and hiking before dawn, but I never regret doing it so sometimes I succeed in defeating my laziness. This was a nice morning with the golden long grass and hot coffee was there for me when I got home. Thanks for reading.

34 thoughts on “Dawn’s Early Light”

  1. I prefer the first photo, for the subtlety. It leaves me wondering where the trail may be going, but without distracting from the rest of the scene.

    I also don’t mind the sun flare. I kind of like the looks of sun flare.

    I get a little banding in the sky in my photos, also, when I post them. The banding isn’t present with the original photos, but my original photos tend to be about 4 to 8 MB. I reduce them down to about 1 to 2 MB so they don’t take as much space in my blog storage. But that also degenerates the photo quality a little, resulting in sky banding.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I spent by far the most time on that first photo and it is my favorite. I could probably write an entire post on all the steps I took to do the editing. Getting the highlights in the grass to pop was quite a bit of effort. On of my favorite photos of the year that was not taken in the Arctic circle.

      The round distorted color blob of lens flare draws the eye and I when back and forth about what to do with it. I left most of it in.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Whenever my wife sees those round blobs in my photos, she claims they are spirits from another world, and urges me not to delete the photo. But sometimes I delete the photo anyway. I wonder what happens to those poor spirits?

        Liked by 2 people

  2. Your first picture is my favorite of these. Love the golden grass. Reminds me of a post I did a while back, Fields of Gold. I had to get a picture from Pinterest because I didn’t have your photos to choose from back then. Sad, isn’t it.
    I also always like your fascination with old tree stumps and trees.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That golden grass was a bit of a surprise for me. The last time I went up there at dawn, there had been a recent burn and there wasn’t much grass. On this morning the grass was so beautiful, I was filled with joy and happy that I had gotten out of the house so early.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Nice, Jason. A hint of light can make a dramatic difference in an image. A feeling of drama and such is always a bonus. I mostly remember the “flat and harsh” light from my time in West Texas. And getting up early or staying up late to catch such a wee bit of light.

    Liked by 1 person

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