On Thursday morning I woke up really early. I set an alarm to wake up at ten past four in the morning; instead I woke up a few minutes past two. May have been twenty minutes. Not sure. Anyway, I couldn’t get back to sleep and so around twenty to four I got up, got ready and left around forty-two minutes later.

My aim was to get to a particular spot in The Blue Mountains so as to capture the sunrise. I’d worked out that if I left at around half-past-four I’d get to where I wanted to be just in time, so deciding to get ready sooner and thus leave a little earlier helped out.

The drive was pretty straightforward. It was mostly in the dark with not much traffic which was great. Still had to deal with some people driving in an unsafe manner but that was early on and the drive into and through The Blue Mountains was really easy.

Shortly after passing Katoomba I noticed that first light had begun which was a concern as I was around fifteen to twenty minutes away from where I was going to take photos. I avoid speeding (can’t afford a fine) so I was feeling a bit more pressure staying at the speed limit than had I decided to go well over as I didn’t want to miss anything. That said, it’s unlikely speeding would’ve saved much time.

On the plus side a heavy fog was around which meant I got to use my fog lights, which admittedly isn’t that exciting but I like using them when given the chance. More importantly it created a certain feel to that part of the drive that I really liked.

I reached where I was going, parked and got out of the car, grabbed my camera gear and powered up Hat Hill. When I arrived it was close to six in the morning so I felt I didn’t have much time before I’d miss what remained of the sunrise.

I got to the top and I took a few photos before going a bit further along the track to Bald Head Lookout before stopping again and taking the below photo.

The sun looks like it’s pouring out its light which is then spreading outward along the landscape. The landscape itself has a sense of distance which in part is aided by the sunlight, and the clouds help keep the focus away from the sky.

There were some other photos I took which I’ll end up sharing, but none of them, including this one did the sunrise justice. They were lucky and, had I not left home around eight minutes earlier than I’d planned I could’ve missed a lot of what I saw.

As a side note, here’s roughly what the area looks like on a clear day.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-forty-fourth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Glowing Moments“.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Week 1 – Tina

Week 2 – Patti

Week 3 – Ann-Christine aka Leya

Week 4 – Amy

Week 5 – John Steiner

Week 6 – Sofia Alves

Week 7 – Anne Sandler

Week 8 – Donna

Week 9 – Guest host

Siobhan of Bend Branches is guest-curating this one. The next one is curated by Tina.

The challenges are fun to engage with. The themes are specific enough to keep some focus whilst loose enough to allow room for interpretation. I recommend participating as it’s a fun community to be engaged with and it’s a good way to focus on subject. If you don’t participate, you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.