5 Things: African Sunrises

Longonot Sunrise, Kijabe

September 22, 2010

55mm, 1/40 sec, f8 ISO100

I got up early to photograph a near-simultaneous sunrise/moonset over Mount Longonot.  Unfortunately, the moon was gone a mite too soon for a very good image.  But just a couple of minutes later, I snapped this shot.

Tsavo Sunrise, Tsavo West National Park

April 10, 2011

300mm, 1/400 sec, f5.6, ISO400

Staying at Ngulia Bandas on our trip to Mombasa, I got up early to watch the sunrise from our porch.  While the accommodations are rather dated and run-down (read: mice, lizards and bugs making so much noise in the walls you could barely sleep) the view was perhaps the best we've seen in Kenya - for sunrises especially.  I had a nice long think while watching the sun rise over the African mist.  I blogged about it here.

Whistling Thorn Sunrise, Nyeri

December 11, 2011

125mm, 1/400 sec, f10, ISO200

The best part of this sunrise was photographing with my dad on their visit here.  The Whistling Thorn Acacia grows galls on its branches which provide a home for pinching ants who in turn protect the plant (because three-inch thorns are not enough!)  This image with the dew on the thorns, the warm morning light and the silhouette of Mount Kenya is one of my favorites.  You've really got to view it full-screen to get the effect (just click on the image).

Amboseli Sunrise, Amboseli National Park

April 12, 2012

150mm, 1/400 sec, f4.8, ISO400

This is one of a handful of great sunrise pictures we took on a family safari to Amboseli National Park.  Amboseli is known for is huge herds of elephants.  It's also the park that Heather spent significant amounts of time studying in during college.  I really enjoyed seeing the Kenya Heather saw before we were married.

Mara Topi Sunrise, Maasai Mara National Reserve

April 18, 2012

300mm, 1/125 sec, f5.6 ISO1400

I had a great opportunity to go on a budget photo safari with a couple of staff here at RVA.  One of the guys, Mike, does photography as a side business and it was with him and a couple of his professional photography friends that we got robbed in Nakuru.  This trip, while wet, made up for it.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.


It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.




And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins