After two cloudy days in a row, this was my reward.
The morning started out almost cloudless, but as the sun slowly moved upward and approached the horizon, the scene became filled with more and more clouds. I made a number of pleasing photos this morning over a 30-minute period. I decided to use this one for today, which was one of my last photos of the morning, because the clouds made a more interesting scene than my earlier photos.
Of course, any clear, cloudless day is beautiful, and it is never something to complain about. But when you photograph the sunrise every morning, those cloudless mornings can get redundant because they mostly look the same. In that way, cloudy mornings are similar to completely overcast ones.
The best mornings for photographing sunrises are the ones with just the right amount of clouds. These partly-cloudy mornings are unpredictable—anything can happen and anything does happen. These mornings are the unknown. No two scenes are quite the same, and in fact, most mornings possess a staggering uniqueness. They can display a wild array of colors and shapes that have the potential to leave us completely awestruck.
Few things are black and white. Most are some shade of gray. Often, the best results are in the gray area.