#61 Burst at Dawn

Every so often, you capture a photograph that will be hard to forget. 

It was five in the morning, and we were somewhere on Cagraray island in the province of Albay. After just 15 minutes of basic instruction we roared out of the parking lot, each on our own ATV's (all-terrain vehicles), speeding towards a mountain viewpoint to catch the sunrise. We've never been on anything that made so much noise, while at the same time vibrating every single bone in our body. Yet, the cool damp wind rushing through our face helped us forget the danger of falling off. We were having too much fun. The sky was bright by the time we arrived at our destination. And on the horizon, behind a row of mountains across a narrow channel, the sun was about to burst forth. I quickly spied a vantage point some 10 feet below where we stood, and carefully slid down a nearby cliff to get there. Another fifteen minutes later, it was done. My catch that morning, including the shot above, was safely stored on my CF card.

So what was so memorable about it? Aside from capturing the sun's fury as it struggled to overcome dark rain clouds? It was taken with a prized lens that I had accidentally dropped while scrambling down that cliff face. Ouch! Lucky for me, it stopped short of a ledge leading to God-knows-where.  It survived with just a nicked aperture ring, a reminder of the price we sometimes pay for a better vantage point. The cost of that lens? A king's ransom. The value of those shots? Priceless. Enjoy.  

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