APOGEEPHOTO MAGAZINE: Sunrise at Smith Rock by Bill Miller

Apogee Photo Magazine

Decisive Moments

Sunrise at Smith Rock

by Bill Miller

If you’re looking for a new challenge to grow your skills as a photographer, try an early morning trip to photograph a unique sunrise. Dawn makes for glorious and brilliant landscape photography, and any time of the year is a good time to shoot a sunrise.

All you need is:

A sunrise
Some clouds floating in a mostly deep blue sky.
A camera with film
As always, some common sense

Sunrise photos are about light, color and specific moments in time that will can your breath away. Not only are great images there to be made, you’ll see wildlife and a world that is very different from any other time a day.

Take your tripod; low speed color film and a polarizing filter to get your best, most colorful and sharpest pictures. Take full advantage of the morning; arrive early, and be ready to shoot as soon as the sun rises.

However, you will have to get out of bed very early. The Farmer’s Almanac, your daily newspaper or local TV news will let what time the sun rises, but knowing when the sun will actually arrive and shine on your location depends on elevation and the hills that may be in the way. Just so you know: sunrise and sunset’s colors are dominantly yellow and red respectively. The sun’s light is filtered through dust, moisture, smoke, hydrocarbons released by forests and grasslands as they are warmed by the sun on the horizon.

My favorite Central Oregon sunrise is at Smith Rock, and the longest sunrise I have ever seen. Most sunrises take twenty to thirty minutes but Smith Rock sunrises takes nearly two full hours. The geology and shape of the rock formations on the cliffs provide a lot of canvass for the sun’s light to paint at dawn. Early morning treks to photograph a sunrise are great from the upper rim of the park, but the Crooked River at the bottom of the canyon is where to find blue heron and some very nervous turtles.

At sunrise the light from the sun appears over the hills to the east bring Smith Rock’s shear walls and rock formations come to life. The western cliffs get the first stroke of summer’s yellow morning light. The valley is second, followed by the eastern walls and the sun makes its presence felt one rock at a time.

Chilly night air and a blanket of darkness keep Smith Rock in a state of dusk until the sun finally gets above the formations to the east. What was dark becomes full of light, and animals that have been using the pre-dawn hours to forage begin to disappear. Recently, as the first light hit the western cliffs a doe nursing two fawns stood just a few dozen feet away and allowed me to photograph them until they were done. Later it would be time for eagles and heron, but the magic of this morning was the deer. There is always something like that when you spend you morning at Smith Rock.

Spruce up your portfolio with a predawn shoot at Smith Rock. The park opens at sunrise. But, if you can’t make it to Smith Rock you can probably find a location like it near your home.

Bill Miller is a photographer, teacher and writer. He is the founder of PhotoTreks and conducts workshops in the Oregon area. You can learn more about Bill and his workshops by going to www.empnet.com/imageworks/PTREKS/index.html.