I am a morning person. It’s not easy to get up early in the AM, but over the years I’ve learned the benefits of crawling out of bed well before my family and sometimes well before the sun. I’d love to say that I spring out bed every morning excited for the day ahead. Most of the time though the motivation that gets me up early is the idea if I don’t, I may not get any time to myself.  If i don’t get up now, my kids will be up soon and that window of solitude will quickly close.

The other motivation that gets me out of bed before the sun is more weather related.  In my opinion, there are few experiences like getting up to see the sun rise. Over the course of this blog I suspect I’ll spend a lot of time talking about light.  Photography is light.  Photography only works if light is available in some form. So it’s natural that much of my time is spent studying the effects of light, whether from the sun or some artificial means. So i love the sunrise. I love watching the transition from the artificial lights of cars and street lights to the sun creeping over the horizon. So much of  good story can be told through the light you see.  Is it cold and blue or warm and orange? Is the darkness overtaking the light or is the sun blazing in full prominence? It all works together to tell a story and this post just another story.

So here is a story…

I had the pleasure to join fishing guide and world traveler Cody Morehead on a fly fishing trip one early morning in October. Mostly I want to share some of the images from that day, but I also want you to look at how the light changes through the story. Like many of my adventures, we started at “O dark thirty”.  We arrived before the sun started to rise and we left after it was in full swing.  So “read” this story through images alone and tell me what you think.

By the time we finally made our fist steps into the river the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon.  There really is nothing like that first “golden hour” to warm up photographs.

side note: I don’t know a ton about fishing but it was encouraging to see that

even the pros spend an excessive amount of time untangling their lines.

 

 

 

After a few hours of shooting i had the opportunity to join Cody on the river and reel in a few fish of my
own. no pun intended, I’m hooked.  So here is to the next time i find myself on the river! Moral of the story…. get up early.  It’s worth it!