For close to 3 years I was working in an office cubicle, staring at a dual screen computer monitor in a windowless room. I would arrive in the wide open parking lot, usually just before sunrise, take a moment to see some color in the clouds, but then head inside for the morning briefing. This was a position I sought for a long time, because of what I could learn and for the perceived prestige that came with it. I hated doing it. The fluorescent lights drained my energy and wilted my soul. Most others move from this job to a supervisory role or something even more specialized, but I opted to go back to patrol. I shrugged off all of the looks and questions. Now, with a new frame of mind, I have the freedom to be outside most of the time and to see the sunrise almost every day.
This photo was taken on September 25, 2022, which was a Sunday. I began bringing my camera with me on days I predicted the call volume would be slow. The pre-dawn sky was looking pretty good, so I drove in search of a view and ended up on Morton Rd, at a gate to some farmland. I set up my camera at the edge of the fence and witnessed one of the most vivid sunrises I had seen in a very long time. Of course I would have like to see this in a remote wild setting. However, I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job that puts me out in the world every day to see what Nature offers.
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” - Seneca
This picture is a combination of 3 separate photos. I chose to shoot at f8 because it was a fairly dark scene and I wanted to keep the ISO low. The first 2 images were exposed for the foreground. They were focus stacked, with one focused on the wooden fence post in the foreground and one focused on the hay bale in the distance, at 1/4 second. For the sky, I kept f8 but shot at 1/15 second. These 3 shots were combined in Photoshop in post processing to get the final image.
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