How many times has it happened to you? You’ve got a really cool vision (or at least you think so) for a shot of the full moon setting over the city skyline. So, you set your alarm to wake up extra early on a Saturday morning. You grab a cup of hot coffee at the 24 hours McDonald’s drive-through and head down to the lakefront. At the spot you picked out you discover that you cannot make that shot on a Saturday morning because the buildings that are brightly lit on a weeknight are mostly lights out in the predawn hours of a Saturday.
Meanwhile, 180 degrees behind you the eastern sky begins to turn a glorious shade of pink. Well, as long as you’re there you might as well get your gear out …
Six months after the above episode I set my alarm early on a cold Saturday morning in January. I had driven by the Northpoint area on the Milwaukee lakefront a few days before and noticed that the pilings of that old pier were capped with some striking ice “sculpture.” Wouldn’t that be gorgeous when it was lit by the dawn light? Up early again, I realized the eastern sky on Saturday was a solid bank of clouds. Bummer. But I decided to drive down to Northpoint anyway. Bummer #2. The old pilings looked like rotten mushrooms. I tried some pictures anyway, sure I’d be disappointed.
Then I noticed there was one small gap in the cloudbank. Maybe the rising sun would pass through it. I got my camera ready on the tripod and waited, taking a shot now and then. And, Yes! The warm rays from the sun burst through the opening in the clouds and illuminated surf crashing against an icy shore, with chunks of ice floating everywhere.
The moral of the story?
“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.”
— The Rolling Stones
Tim
