Risk and Reward

Over the years I have leaned that questionable weather leads to the best chance for ideal photographic opportunities… or nothing at all. There have been times when I drove through intense, but brief, thunderstorms and down pours, having them break for moments to let the sun pour through in burst of color. There have also been times when the weather didn’t let up and the photo opportunity never arrived.

The Risk

This past Sunday I was given the chance to roll the dice on great photo opportunity… or nothing at all.  The night before I made plans to go shoot sunrise at Belmar Beach in New Jersey since there were scattered showers and thunderstorms predicted over the next 24 hours.  So that morning my alarm pulled me from sleep at 3:30AM and I retaliated with hitting the snooze and debated if I really wanted to do this. The alarm came again and I checked the weather on my phone, partly cloudy and a chance of showers. The forecast for my location, Belmar, NJ, was about the same but a bit better. So after coffee and a “quick bite” breakfast I was in the car driving an hour down 195 to my location. It began to shower when I was twenty minutes into my trip, but I was all in at this point as experience has taught me the value of persistence.

Over the next forty minutes I drove through two more showers but the sky began to look very promising. Soon my wonder if doing this was even going to be worth it was replaced by the familiar stress over missing some good early light .  Why did I hit the snooze?  Finally, I pulled into a parking spot, grabbed my gear and headed toward the breaking waves. I was past the risk and ready for…

The Reward

More images are in the slide show below. Thank you for reading and looking at the images. As always, feel free to email me with any questions and your comments, critique are welcome below.

And by the way… it started pouring just as I began my trip home.

Bryan