February 2013 Sunrise

The sunrise is creeping earlier but the trees are still bare so there is still a sunrise view from my front porch. By March it will be iffy.

I like the stark blackness of the branches against the brightening sky and the sun just peeking from a rooftop.

The morning I captured this picture seemed to be full of school buses coming through the neighborhood. I noticed the first one before 6:30 AM! That is an early morning for the students. And it was below freezing with the sun not yet contributing any warmth to the day.

Vanishing Snow

Last week it snowed overnight. It wasn’t more than an inch and the streets had retained enough heat from the daytime to melt what fell on them. The snow was lumpy on the grass and bushes. It stuck to the trees. I went out to take pictures as the sun was coming up and then several times over the next couple of hours. It was just below freezing at sunrise then warmed up very quickly. Surprisingly the last walk around was the one that interested me the most - and not for photographic reasons. It was the sounds - 

• bits of snow falling from the oak and fracturing on the driveway and
• water running down the gutters

The snow was mostly gone by noon.

The Sun Coming Down from the Trees

Years ago - on an annual fall foliage camping trip - we got up at dawn because it was too cold to stay in the tents any longer. As we built the fire to cook breakfast - someone noticed the sunlight in the tops of the trees. It looked so warm compared to where we were at the forest floor - still in deep shade. And the description of what was happening became “the sun coming down from the trees.” We all watched as the light made its way down the trees and anticipating the day warming up.

I caught the same time of morning behind my house this week. The tree tops were glowing with the reflected light of dawn - much more colorful that the washed out light later in the morning that reached all the way to the forest floor.

On that cold morning almost 40 years ago - we bundled up, had a hot breakfast and took a hike. We still have some of the prints of sumac seed pods from that morning!

January 2013 Sunrise

It is easy to capture the sunrise in January because I am already up and about at sunrise. The one in this post was taken at 7:15 AM yesterday from my front porch. The only negative was the temperature; it was in the low 20s so I got the picture I wanted and retreated to the warmth indoors.

Dawn is an every day celebration….the overcoming of night….another day full of potential…the return of color to the world.