Back to photostream

Blue Hour, Capitola Pier Sunrise - Capitola, California

Portfolio & Services

 

Serendipity

 

It's funny sometimes how images come to fruition. Like this morning, I had no desire to get up early for a third day in a row at sunrise, yet I did. Mind you, it wasn't by choice.

 

You see, my girlfriend had to unexpectedly leave town, and therefore I am living the single life for a few days. Normally, one of our cats, Hana, demands to be let out between 5-6am. And normally, I sleep right through her tirades because my girlfriend lets her out. Well, the first two days of bachelorhood, I had gotten up earlier than the cat. Today, however, with grand visions of sleeping in until 10 or 11am, Hana woke up first. And she was persuasive. Now, there is that little thing called a biological clock, and mine had started to think 5am was a good time to wake up.

 

So here I was, up again before sunrise, and to my surprise, the rain that had started the night before (and was predicted to really kick in at 6am), seemed to be gone, replaced by really nice storm clouds.

 

Half asleep, I cleaned my filters, packed my gear, and decided to go easy on myself and head down to a new spot for me photographically, the Capitola Pier. It's close to home, and I didn't think I'd get wet (although I wound up soaked from the waist down).

 

Originally, I thought I would wind up with a black and white image because I predicted a lack of sunrise color, and in the end, there wasn't any. But the colors of the sky over the almost minute long exposure, along with the golden glow of the lamps on the wharf, were too much to resist.

 

This image almost didn't happen. But thanks to one persuasive cat, it did.

 

Nikon D300

Tokina 11-16mm @ 13mm

55.4sec @ f8, ISO 200

B+W Polarizer

Lee .6 Hard and .6 Soft Stop GND Filters

98,802 views
1,654 faves
499 comments
Uploaded on February 22, 2009
Taken on February 22, 2009