We woke up at 4:00 AM. Nobody wanted to miss the tuktuk in the early morning. In such a cold and foggy morning, transportation was difficult. We arrived early ? too early ? at the selected hillside where all the tuktuk drivers knew the best spot and angle to shot the sun. Everyone had camera on tripod. All equipments were ready. Everyone seems to be anxious. The sun was not up yet! Everyone seems to be disturbed. The sun still not up yet! In the slow whisperings of wind, I heard somebody asking for a cigarette, and a person asked me "what time you got?" while looking at his watch. Me too, I was sitting on brambles, I thought.
But the problem is not the sun's. It's because we arrived here too early: we all knew that we have only a few minutes to capture the rising sun behind the terraced field, after traveling from many different corners of the earth. Like me, I flew 3 hours from Houston to Los Angeles, another 12 hours from LAX to Hong Kong, plus 2 hours from HKG to KMG, before one more day by bus from Kunming to this little town, for this decisive moment.
Finally, we saw the first flare. Every one knew the subject is rising, but all of us whispers the same, "It's up! It's Up". (yes. If it's rain, we would lose 100%).
7/7 You story was equal in value to the wonderful image. The watcher watches the watcher... I'm sorry you didn't get the shot it most likely would have been amazing.
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{K:11291} 6/28/2005
