4 minutes to kickoff

That was just about a record yesterday morning -- waking up at 2:30. I did stay in bed until 3, hoping in vain to get back to sleep. But I didn't and once up, I figured I could take my sweet time and still get out to take some photos, which is what I eventually did.

One never knows how the morning will break, but when I saw a faint strip of orange from my bedroom, I thought I'd better get out there. I was thinking that I might try for a silhouette of a nearby silo, but I didn't get that far, for the light that I saw coming over the trees as I was driving,  just a block away from home, was looking very good. I figured that I could use the communications tower as an anchor or focal point of sorts.

This was what I saw. Remember that I am not trying to photoshop these images, but it is quite possible that I did add a little to the reality -- just a little though. I mean you get back home, and you go by your impression of what it was like. The camera never gets it right anyway. 

This is what the sky looked like just 4 minutes later. Isn't that an incredible change? It's from a slightly different position using a slightly different focal length, so the photos don't line up exactly, but close enough.

It was a stunning display. Various people posted their own versions of that spectacular sunrise to our local fb group or commented something like they saw that incredible sky on their way to work.

I was at quite a distance for both of the above photos and was using my telephoto lens, so I couldn't take in a lot of the scene. To get more of the view in, I then took 4 photos and stitched them in post.

Actually, I took 6 shots in sequence, but Photoshop only managed to 4 of them. I think the sky was changing so fast that it could not line up all 6.

Then as I was turning to go, I spied a kiss of light on the water tower in the opposite direction. However, by the time I drove near to it and then trudged some distance to get to a good spot, that light was gone and the sky behind was a pale blue in the other direction form the sunrise. Because I was there, I took a photo anyway and added a sky in post, just for fun.

Yup. Fake sky. I mean, it's a real enough sky, but it sure wasn't the one that I saw in that direction yesterday morning.

PS: I guess I was fated to wake up so early because I went to bed early, at 9:30 on the previous night. I was so tired that I almost had to, but it sure resulted in an early morning.