Thanksgiving found me working the early shift–one I haven’t worked in quite some time.  I love the light when the sun has just come up.  It’s like Mother Nature reminding you how fortunate you are to be able to capture it with the black contraption in your hand called a camera.

A nearly picture-perfect sunrise with the island of Molokai visible on the horizon is juxtaposed by the silhouette of a bulldozer claw Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008 near Makapuu Point.

It was off to UH football practice for me, and the light was NICE!!!!!  Our eyes see differently from the camera.  This is what our eyes see:

Our eyes see differently from what our camera sees. This is a pocket of sunlight with the shadows of the UH dorms looming on either side. I bracketed a sequence, and this is "proper" exposure, showing highlights and detail in the shadows. Note that I brought up some of the shadow for the purpose of showing what our eyes really see in this situation.

Because of the bracketing, which, in case some of you who aren’t familiar with it, is shooting a sequence of shots both over and under exposing up to 2 whole stops, I chose to go with the underexposed highlight.  This results in dramatic chiaroscuro.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 70-200 f2.8L IS at 158mm, Exposure mode: Manual, ISO 200, 1/5000 @ f2.8, Daylight whitebalance

Nice light is key.  Here in Hawaii, though, because of our location on the planet, we don’t have very long every day to get good light.  Usually about an hour in the morning and an hour at dusk.  One of my mentors, Frederic Larson of the San Francisco Chronicle, ingrained a saying into my head “Great moments in great light.”  That’s something to live by.  Here’s more football practice.  

Most people were thankful for family, good health, turkey, stuffing, and each other.  I was thankful for that, no question, but I was thankful for great light Thursday morning.