Mt. Desert Island is an island close to the coast of Maine on which much of Acadia National Park sits.  This is the first time B. and I have taken a trip for the sole purpose of photography.  This trip included committing myself to getting up to see the sunrise. I told myself daily for the week before, “you will get up”.  Seeing the sunrise was never on my ‘need to do’ list.  For those who know me, it is an understatement to say I am not a morning person.  That’s not to say I haven’t seen the sunrise before, but it is while something else had called me out, as in an early morning flight to Europe or a Brimfield excursion.  Nonetheless, I sucked it up, ate some dark chocolate and waited for the sun to rise.  B. had fun, so this will not be the last time.  I’m thinking the next time I rise to photograph the sunrise I need to be in Venice, Italy…what do you think?  Anyway, here is a small sample of my photographs:

This island is one of my top three favorite places in the USA.

Here’s the sky before and after dawn.  Imagine me having a few bites of dark chocolate as the sun rises.  I couldn’t have coffee until breakfast, but, geesh, did that coffee (and breakfast) taste good!

I’d like to say that these trucks belong to real men, doing real work.  (Not men who commute from the suburbs in their fancy, clean trucks and shuffle money to make their fortunes.  In case you miss my tone, I say this with derision.)

The Grand Canyon of Acadia National Park.  Sunset over Johnson Pond, I think, on our last Acadia evening for the season.

I am very happy with the photographs that I took on this trip, because there is not a blurry one in the bunch…except when I, accidently, took a picture of the ground.  This is a huge improvement from my Sweden pictures, which were often blurry because I had used too slow a shutter speed.  Maybe now I can pay more attention to composition.

We had an interesting kerfuffle while waiting to take the sunrise pictures.  When we arrived at our sight, we set up our tripods and equipment with no one in sight.  Just when the sun was about to rise, a photographer (I’ll refer to him as Pman) came hurrying down the cliff and started hassling B. to move.  He had three students with him and apparently B. had picked Pman’s favorite spot to shoot the sunrise.  Pman wanted B. to move because he wanted B.’s spot.  He did not want any other place along the coast, just B.’s spot.  Keep in mind, besides him and his students, we were the only other two people in this area on the coast of Maine!  Apparently, cooperation to Pman means ‘get out of my way, I own the coast’.  It did disturb B. a bit because both he and I try to cooperate…but this guy was ranting and raving, and in the wrong.  His students were clearly embarrassed.  Fortunately, when it was clear he couldn’t bully B. into moving, Pman disappeared behind a huge boulder during the sunrise.  His students just set up next to me and refused to move near their teacher when he called them.  When the light was gone, he was ranting again as he headed back up the cliff to his car.  The last student off the rocks came over to me and confirmed we were absolutely in the right, we had been there first.  Even though we knew this, it was nice to hear from one of the parties involved.  Who would think a photographer would be so arrogant and aggressive?  Isn’t this about art?  Needless to say, B. was a bit off kilter during the shoot and was not totally happy with some of his photographs, because he was distracted by Pman’s behavior.  This is where it pays to not be a morning person.  I did listen to what was occurring, I offered Pman the place next to me in which he was trying to force B., but I didn’t get too emotionally involved because I was just starting to eat my chocolate so I was only partially there.  We’ve had some good chuckles about this encounter since.

So type A photographers out there, I say, “Chill! With a little luck there will be another sunrise tomorrow.  Or, get up earlier to calmly claim your spot…and eat chocolate!”