I wanna catch your wave(s)

One of the perils and the perks of being a morning person is that you’re generally up before the sun.

Sunday morning was no exception. The sky was still dark when I woke up, the sun’s early rays just beginning to creep over the horizon. One of the perks of living in Chicago is the city’s proximity to Lake Michigan, so I decided to take a walk to the harbor and see what I could see.

What I saw was beautiful. The lake was angry and the water choppy creating some lovely aesthetics as the waves crashed into shore.

Very quickly, a relaxing walk to the harbor turned into a quest to take the best possible picture of the waves crashing in off the lake.

So, rather than simply enjoy the rising sun and the silence of the slumbering city around me, I whipped out my trusty iPhone 6 and just started taking pictures.

One of the perils of trying to nail a great weather picture, however, is timing. In this case, the waves were unpredictable. From a timing perspective, I couldn’t reliably predict when a wave was going to crash into the shore and send the water high enough for me to capture a great shot.

So, I spent about an hour crouching on the sidewalk abutting the lake taking roughly 300 pictures.

Of course, that meant for every shot like this:

I had roughly a half dozen like this, wherein nothing was really going on, but the skyline and the sun still looked great.

The end result made it all worth it though, a morning walk to clear my mind leading to an hour and a half long photo excursion. Just me and the city. And if you haven’t caught a sunrise along Chicago’s lakefront, I highly recommend it sometime. It’s definitely worth the early wakeup call.