Early birds and backward hats

I got up at 5:00 this morning and decided I would drive over to Emerald Bay to see if I could get some sunrise shots over the bay. There were no other cars on the road, so I made it over there in less than 20 minutes. I didn't think there would be too many cars in the parking areas even though this time of year is the height of tourist season. It was just too early and it was a weekday morning.

As I came around the slide area and saw the bay, I didn't see any cars parked in the usual parking places. However, there were already 2 photographers on the scene with their hats on backwards and their fancy Nikon/Canon cameras with the big lenses perched on their fancy ball-head tripods.

I wondered about guy photographers always wearing their baseball caps backwards? Why can't they just take them off. Really, they didn't need a hat because at this early hour the morning sun wasn't going to be an issue. Then, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw my bed-head hair and I realized why photographers who get up before the sun comes up wear caps. I fluffed my hair with my fingers, but it was pretty hopeless.

Two photographers aren't bad. I parked the car, grabbed my gear and my non-fancy, non-ball-head tripod and trudged across the street. I was hoping to get a spot near Eagle Falls, but there was already a backward-hat-wearing-photographer with his ball-head tripod set up practically on the falls.

I did find a spot, on the other side of the falls where I got a pretty good view of the bay and the sunrise, but no falls in the foreground. After the sun rose, I walked back the way I came and the falls photographer had also moved on. So, I snapped this photo and felt fairly good about it. I guess next time I will just have to get there earlier.

Right.