#67 Fire at Dawn

Every so often, you get lucky. 

We were on Badian Island in southern Cebu, a secluded little place about 2.5 hours by car from the Mactan airport. The place looked promising: a sprawling wilderness by the sea with few of the usual fixtures of progress. As night fell, I looked out beyond a row of mountains to the east and began to prepare my mind for dawn.

It's mostly about the composition. What elements are there to work with? What foreground objects can I use? Tree branches are good because they silhouette well; thick bushes usually aren't because they become a dark solid mass. Is there a body of water nearby? Yes there is. Reflections are good because they can multiply the faint colors of a dawn sky. There is a mountain range on the eastern horizon... this will delay sunrise a bit. If low flying clouds happen to pass above those mountains at dawn, the sun will light them up from below. It will be spectacular...

But the sky was gray and gloomy the afternoon before.  And although I have a composition in my head, I retired without hoping for much. The eastern horizon could be cloudy. But I set my alarm clock anyway because you never know for sure.

Well, you never do. I woke up to see this reddish light streaming into my bedroom, beckoning me to the window. I peered out to see one of the most awesome dawns unfolding across the still dim sky: an explosion of orange and crimson multiplied many fold by the sea below, in a manner beyond what I had imagined the night before. Peak light had come earlier than expected this morning. There was no time to read the exposure the usual way. I guessed the settings for my first few shots and experience eventually took over.  Five years chasing dawns and the process is like clockwork.  A fisherman and his boat zips into my frame, ok got that too. Sure, luck favors the prepared mind but I still think I just got lucky today. After all, it could have rained. Enjoy.

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