Be Patient

 

"Be patient."

It's one of my photography mantras that I share when I teach my beginning digital photography class at the University of New Mexico's Continuing Education department.  

This morning's sunrise was one of those "wait for it" events.  The sky to the east was overcast, but there was just a touch of pink above the Sandia Mountains at 6:13am . . .

But after a few minutes, even that had disappeared (6:21 am):

At this point, I would usually conclude that there was no more to be seen, pack up my camera and tripod, and go back in the house.  But that earlier hint of pink above the mountain -- and the streaks of pink off to the southeast -- suggested that behind the mountains (where I couldn't see) there might be a gap between the cloud layer and the horizon that would allow the sun to illuminate the underside of the cloud layer, at least for a few minutes.  So I left everything in place, and waited.

Four minutes later (6:25 am), to the northeast, where the mountain descends and the horizon isn't so obscured, something was happening:

Moments later, even the sky above the mountain began to light up:

In two minutes (6:28 am), the sky was ablaze:

Three minutes after that (6:31 am), it was beginning to shrink at the lower level, but was lighting up some of the higher (actually nearer) clouds:

A minute later (6:32 am) it was almost over:

So what initially appeared to be a "nothing" sunrise turned into a beautiful 8-minute light show.  It doesn't work out this way every time, but it's always a good idea to . . .  be patient.

- - - - - - - - - 

Later in the day, a bonus:  clouds streaking across the sky . . .

If you would like to see these images in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!