Seeking Sunrises on the Maine Coast (Mornings 1, 2 and 3)

We were recently up in Maine for a few days along the coast near Blue Hill.  The weather was beautiful.  Though technically autumn, except for the leaves changing colors it felt like summer.  Shorts and sandals were the order of the day.

I like pursuing sunrises in autumn because the sunrise actually comes at a reasonable hour.  In the summer, sunrise on the Maine coast (when we've been there) is about 5:30.  And because some of the best color comes at twilight, I like to get to my "spot" 30 minutes before sunrise.  Argh, that's hard to do.  But in late September sunrise is at 6:30.  This is great news for me.  The biggest problem turned out to be the mosquitoes, even though temperatures were in the 40s and 50's at that hour.

Below is my favorite shot from morning #1.  Not exactly a sunrise shot, as this was taken about 7 a.m.  The actual sunrise, though beautiful, was rather lackluster for a photograph.  But as I returned to our cabin I spotted this.  The sun was still low in the east and gave some nice color on the starboard side of this lobster boat.  I like the overall soft colors of the background.

Morning #2 was just to opposite.  Instead of an uninteresting cloudless horizon, there was a thick layer of clouds which resulted in now sunrise.  However, again around 7 a.m.  the sun did rise above the cloudy horizon and provided this shot looking south.

A Touch of Autumn

Morning #3 was totally awesome.  I took a lot of pictures over a 10 minute period and don't at this point know which one is best.  But the following is representative.  The scene was absolutely gorgeous.

[Photos from mornings 4, 5 and 6 will follow, in tomorrow's blog post... I'm still deciding which ones I like best.]