moonriver's tags:

Here is the second batch of pics from my recent mountain trek with my son. I'm posting a more detailed account as a separate blog.

1. I wake up at 4 am, go to the kitchen to help make coffee, and chat over cups of coffee with local folk who volunteered for kitchen duty. A little past 5 am, standing at a nearby ridge overlooking the tent city, I catch the very first glimmer of dawn with this photo.

mountain trek 2 dawn01



2. Just a few minutes later, the dawn gains the upper hand over the night sky. The shapes of the tents are barely visible in the shadows.

mountain trek 2 dawn02


3. The dawn finally breaks. (The sky appears darker here compared to the previous photo, due to auto exposure settings having adjusted to the bright disk of the sun.)

mountain trek 2 dawn03


4. I go down to the river under the dilapidated and unused footbridge, and catch the moon setting over the western ridge.

mountain trek 2 moonset 01


5. A few minutes later, I take another pic of the setting moon from another angle, showing the steel cables of the bridge. This and #4 are two of my favorite photos in our entire trip.

mountain trek 2 moonset 02


Batch C is next...



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Comments

  • quietone said on Apr 28, 2008....
    oh, the sunrise is awesome.. the most perfect time of day I say.  I love #1 I can almost hear the birds starting to wake up in this one.. #5 with the moon and the cable of the bridge.. it looks like a tennis ball or ping pong ball going over a net! LOL  pretty cool!!
  • moonriver said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Quietone, I remember writing a blog long ago about my favorite time of day. Here. It's become a sort of challenge verging on an obsession for me to take photos that capture these beautiful facets of daybreak.

    And yes, if I had a video cam with me, I would have captured the trill of the birds too. And the crow of roosters in the nearby village. And my own pre-dawn yawn...lol.

    Now that you point it out (I didn't notice it before), the ball-over-the-net image of the moon over the bridge is indeed startling.

  • quietone said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Yes, I remember that post and the picture.  I have always loved the "waking of the day" so to speak. 
  • moonriver said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Quietone, I returned to re-read that blog just now, and your comment also dwelt on the chirp of morning birds. It seems we have this common obsession... :-)

  • Sunshine_Mariah said on Apr 28, 2008....
    What beautiful pictures you've shared with us.
  • moonriver said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Sunshine -- Thank you. My only frustration is that there are more photos like these, but I can't post them because of my self-imposed rules of anonymity, not only of faces of people close to me, but also of easily-identifiable places and distinct cultural markers...

  • the_infernal_optimist said on Apr 28, 2008....
    I'm envious of your undiluted love affair with nature here, moon. No jangle of city life to interfere with dawn's quiet splendor...

    I love the shot of the moon setting over the ridge (#4). The tree whose topmost branches appear to cradle it is quite pretty, too. What a magical shot! :)

    ~Infernal
  • GrapeKoolaid said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Loved shots #1 and #2. 

    The rosy fingers of dawn slowly spreading over the retreating dark of the night sky...

    I also loved #4.  The moon resting on the top of the tree as she retires for the day...

    Splendid. 

    On to batch C. 
  • Lucytorial said on Apr 28, 2008....
    ohhh moonriver..... what a blessed life!

    Thank you so much for the insight and the pics... wonderful all of them A B & C

    It would have been simply inspiring waking up and watching that sun come up.

    **sigh**
  • wombat said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Wow-wee......I have to say the third pic is my favorite here, although they are all fantastic!
  • gingersoul said on Apr 28, 2008....

    Moon...the first and the second pics are simply gorgeous.......the light is there but just barely there....and number four is so peaceful.....

    I know how proud yo must be of these shots....:-)

  • skald said on Apr 28, 2008....
    Wow the sky, and the moon. You really did get some very good pictures. I am impressed. 
  • queenparanoia said on Apr 28, 2008....
    beautiful... once again so beautiful... =)
  • Trinov said on Apr 29, 2008....
    Hi, the pictures are beautiful, especially the shots of the moon. I don't get to experience the dawn that often (when I was young, for a few years, I got up at 3:30 to work in the fields or was still out there on guard duty so I would see the sunrise). I loved the awakening of the earth, the feeling of newness, the cool breeze, the smell of the dew wet earth. Out there in the mountains it must be very special.
  • silverwhisper said on Apr 29, 2008....
    moon, those shots, esp the first one, are utterly amazing!

    ed
  • Zayda said on Apr 29, 2008....
    Moon: I simply love all the photos in this batch, but #1 is my favorite. What a wonderful capture.
  • moonriver said on May 03, 2008....
    infernal -- Give me any flimsy excuse to escape city life (plus a quick way to pass my responsibilities to other people), and I'll have my backpack ready in 30 minutes flat.

    Re that moon-on-tree shot, I was waiting for exactly that moment, and had to shift my position a couple of times just to get the angle right. Problem is, I have no tripod (which is essential in this kind of shot), so I had to go find a boulder of the right height on which to set down the camera.

    grape -- At first I didn't intend to shoot that scene, because I've done lots of dawn shoots before. But it's rare for me to chance upon the rays shooting up over the mountain ridge like that. I just had to take a series of pics, and choose these two as the nicest ones.

    lucy -- I'm a dawn lover... in more ways than one. Lol. Wink. Thanks, I'm glad you liked the entire series.


  • moonriver said on May 03, 2008....
    wombat -- I liked the 3rd pic because I shot it at that moment when the actual solar disc started to peek out from the line of trees on the ridge, and suffused that part of the sky in its golden brilliance. It's different from pics #1 and #2 in that it has a joyful mood.

    ginger -- Yes, my friend, I like these photos a lot. Now if only I can buy myself a tripod and a bigger memory stick, maybe I'd spend more time in outdoor shoots than in working in these salt mines...

    skald -- Your nature photos are much better, my friend... seriously. But thank you for the nice words. I do try to take my photo shoots more attentively now than before.

    I have this AP manual on photojournalism that I studied from cover to cover last year. I later gave a series of lecture-workshops to journalism students, and got inspired when they showed me their own outputs, which were posted in their own Flickr and Photobucket accounts, and were decidedly better than mine.


  • moonriver said on May 03, 2008....
    queenie -- Now can you please do me a favor and post a few pics of your famous sunsets over Manila Bay? With you smiling in the foreground of course, to make the scene doubly beautiful... :-)

    silver -- Thank you.

    zayda -- I like that photo too. I liked it so much, in fact, that it and pic #2 are among the few ones that I left well enough alone, and dared not retouch using Photoshop filters.

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