ANGELA B. PAN

One of my favorite things to do after taking sunrise pictures is to just sit and enjoy the early morning light. Sometimes you can forget to enjoy the moment. Maybe you woke up late and you’re in a hurry to get to your location or you’re trying to find the perfect composition at the time the light is hitting you subject just right. There can be a number of things that cause you to stress so early in the morning which kinda sounds odd because photography is suppose to be a fun activity. But once all of that madness is done and you’re just left with the early morning light, it can be so peaceful to just sit and enjoy. Even for 10 minutes. It is the most relaxing and beautiful way to spend the morning. I love it. I just feel so happy and calm. Its a great way to just slow down. Rarely will I even have my cell phone out.

This was taken at Otter Cliff in Acadia National Park, Maine. Just looking at this image brings back those feelings of relaxation and peace. I remember sitting on those rocks after I captured this image and watching the sun for a good 20 minutes before doing anything else. That buoy in the distance was ringing a bell every time a wave rocked it over.  Sue and I were the only ones there and barely even said a word to each other. Is it weird to say that thinking about this image and what it took to capture it makes me look forward to waking up for my next sunrise? Yes. The answer is yes.

PS Where the otters at?

The camera settings for this image is F10 at 1/13th of a second with ISO 100 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

If you asked my friend, Sue what her favorite part of our whole Acadia trip was, she’d say it was Ocean Path. It’s a super easy hike from Otter Point to Sandy Beach with a stop at Thunder Hole along the way. It’s two miles long and would typically take people 2-3 hours to complete, it took us almost 4. LOL. That’s only because we stopped a lot to take pictures… and snack breaks. This was our early morning hike so we didn’t have any breakfast prior.

If I had to guess, she liked this hike the most because every view point and every stop was so typical “Acadia”. Like when you google imaged pictures of Acadia, these are the views you’d see in the search results. We were also hiking on a super cloudy day and the air was crisp and cool. It made it so much more comfortable for us to really take our time and enjoy the scenery.

So if you have plans on visiting Acadia National Park, this hike would be one of my top suggestions. It faces east so basically anywhere you stand, you’re going to get a great view of the sunrise. And I’m not sure if we were just lucky or what it was, but we barely saw anyone on the hike. It wasn’t until we got closer to Sandy Beach (our end destination) where we really started seeing people. I think most people go to Cadillac Mountain to view the sunrise if they’re going to wake up that early, but there are other beautiful places in the park to see it too and Ocean Path is one of them!

The best part was being able to take a bus back to our original starting point, Otter Point where we parked our car 🙂 Luckily we got on the bus just in time before it started pouring rain. Man I can’t express how happy I was to be able to take that bus back instead of walking back 2 miles in the rain.