One of my favorite ways to start a photography outing is with an early sunrise. Lake Erie is about 2 1/2 hours from my home, so in order to get the 6:15am sunrise, I needed to be on the road by about 3:30. Once we were done photographing the morning color, we were off to find birds and other wildlife along the Lake Erie shore.

Overnight storms had left some lingering cloud cover, which made for very nice sunrise color.

I use a Canon 70D with the kit lens and a graduated filter to help even out the light. A 1/2 second exposure preserved a touch of texture on the water.