Sunrise Fun!

Yesterday morning, I went to Magnuson Park for a sunrise trip, as I do. I imagined that the sunrise would be particularly colorful due to smoke from wildfires burning east of the Cascades. Today's sunrise theme was grass blades.

The first one might be my favorite. I used a wide aperture (f/3.8) to blur the sun and turn it into a large circle.

Similarly, this one uses a wide aperture (f/3.5). It doesn't fill the frame quite as nicely; the upper left hand corner is a bit of a dead space. Still, the color of the sun is pretty dramatic - this was the earliest image of this bunch, coming as the top of the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

This one came slightly later; as you see, the sun was up from the horizon but still very richly colorful. The aperture of f/16 was originally an accident - I had forgotten to change the settings from something else I had been trying. I decided that I liked the effect though, since the reflections in the lake water come out more clearly.

Finally, a yarrow closeup. I was quite close to the flowers, and used an aperture of f/10 because I wanted the background flowers to fade out of focus more gradually.