About the 2012 Calendar: September

First Morning Light

09-Sep-web5

It isn’t every morning that the sky is scattered with gold-lined clouds broken by colorful rays of warm sunlight. I was at the Northwoods Conference Center in the Ottawa National Forest for almost an entire week and this was the only sunrise of it’s rank in splendor.

The hardest part of taking the picture was probably getting out of bed. It was late going to bed the night before and, being in the early autumn, the sunrise was relatively early. But when I woke up and saw the cloud formations in the sky before the sun rose, it was enough motivation to get me up and out the door.

The second hardest thing was enduring the mosquitos. I was surprised that there were so many out so early. But I guess time of day doesn’t matter to a mosquito, and perhaps the chest-high grass and stagnate pond a stones throw away were not much help either.

Another problem was the super high contrast between the bright sky and the dark foreground. I handled this by using a tripod to take two different pictures, one exposed for the sky, the other exposed for the foreground, and merged them together in Photoshop later.

Reaching a goal by overcoming obstacles one at a time is something we must do every day. Faint not, for though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the message behind 1 of only 12 pictures used for Lenspiration’s 2012 Calendar.

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4 Comments

  1. Donald January 30, 2012 at 2:00 pm #

    Thank you James. You’ve highlighted the way self-control and endurance can bring glorious opportunities withing reach of a photographer on the watch as well as to any person who exercises such character on a faithful daily basis.
    The two-separate-pictures approach to landscapes is excellent. It really works. God bless you with endurance and many more glorious opportunities.

  2. James January 30, 2012 at 2:56 pm #

    Thanks, Donald! It certainly is interesting to see where beautiful pictures show up.

  3. Matthew January 30, 2012 at 5:36 pm #

    Wow – what a picture and story behind the picture! You hit the nail on the hand when you wrote: “Reaching a goal by overcoming obstacles one at a time is something we must do every day”

    Thank you for sharing James – I appreciate your perspective.

  4. Bethany January 30, 2012 at 6:54 pm #

    As always, I really enjoy seeing the pictures you have taken! Thanks for sharing with us — the picture truly is beautiful.

    Keep up the good work!

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