Monday, March 23, 2020

Sunrise on Monday - March 23, 2020

I woke up early with the intent of trying for some sunrise photos. Looking out the window squinting at the sky to see if it was cloudy or not and if it'd be worth heading out.

I'm still looking for a mixed sky and cloud sunrise/sunset to occur where the light catches and burns the clouds across the sky.. it's going to be so awesome when it happens ! (I've only really been at this for about a week or so, lol.. I'll happen eventually.. right?!)

I could see a few stars in the sky so I got dressed. There was still time for a coffee. ;) Sipping my coffee and browsing The Photographers Ephemeris website I angled around and looked to see where the sunlight was going to be and decided I'd try Memorial drive and Edmonton trail.. There's a few bridges and the river's right there. Should be great!

When I finally left the house I saw that there was a cloud bank in the east with a small gap at the horizon. As I drove, with about 20 minutes until sunrise, I could see in the rear view mirror that that cloud bank was starting to catch some colour. I contemplated aborting my plan and just going east of the city but decided to keep on with my original destination.

I found a place to park that had 1 hour street parking starting at 8:30am so I had until 9:30.. perfect! Looking back towards the east the little cloud was having a colour party. Sadly, downtown was still in shadow and there weren't any clouds to catch the light.


Maybe I should have gone east!



I made my way over towards the river and spent some time looking for photos in the shade. There was no rush. Traffic is pretty light with almost everything shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This meant I could make photos of the intersection if I waited for gaps in traffic.. yay.

Quiet streets.


I spent quite a bit of time on and around the north end of Reconciliation bridge and eventually the sun joined me which made me take even more photos.  There was bright reflections off buildings, reflections off of the ice, shadowy handrails, anything you could want!

I looked for compositions trying not take the obvious shot which might be overlooking the handrail and shooting the river/city skyline..  don't be fooled, I took lots of those but I'm hoping to take intriguing photos.

What about this! Whats that foreground element!?

After taking similar shots about 900 times. I finally crossed the river and walked a little ways into downtown making a circle towards the library and back taking photos as I wandered around.


Here's a street sign I saw. My Instagram account's profile (@wbradorr365) statement is "Things I see" and, well, this qualifies. It was definitely something that I saw.

not a bridge.

The library with light on the left (from the sun) and on the right (reflections from the neighboring building.)

YYC Library.. ( it's closed because of the virus.. but that LIGHT! ) 
When I use to work downtown and would drive up 4th ave I'd sometimes catch a glimpse of this scene and would think.. that'd make a cool pic. I wish I wasn't driving into work right now and could just make photos.


As I made my way back to the car the sun was getting higher and the light was much less dramatic. I did take the photo below though.

simplified
The fourth ave flyover has a lot of interesting curves in it and I tried to find some frames earlier. This view feels a lot less busy while still capturing some core elements. (rule 7 - any photograph of the Calgary skyline must include the tower )

As with other posts.. here's a link to the smugmug site which will include the photos shown above as well as any others that I upload.

Thanks for looking.








No comments: