Do Extraordinary Things
A family of geese accompanied me this morning to watch the sunrise from this icy cove. At 34 degrees, it was considerably warmer than most other mornings so far this year.
I’ve photographed this spot several times recently, but today I just couldn’t pass it up because seeing all this ice in the Hudson River is such a rare occurrence. It was nice to have the geese around too.
Here is the Hudson River this morning. Or is it the Arctic Ocean?
I came across this scene by accident. I had just finished my morning’s shoot, or so I thought, a few minutes prior. I wanted to pick up some coffee on my way home, but the coffee shop didn’t open for a little while longer, so I decided to go exploring in the meantime. That’s when I discovered these huge chunks of ice covering a large section of the river at the northernmost end of town. This rare scene easily beat the photos I had made earlier.
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.
I’m starting to develop a new appreciation for cloudy days. The sunrise isn’t much to look at on cloudy days, so I am forced to be more creative with the scene I am photographing. In the absence of a bright palette of colors bursting across the sky, there’s nowhere for me to hide. I can’t just point my camera at nature’s light show and press my shutter button, knowing that the photo will inherently posses a certain level of appeal regardless of how skillfully I construct it. Oh no, not cloudy days. They give you nothing. They don’t forgive. And that’s what I like about them—cloudy days push me harder.
Cloudy days allow me to experiment with shots I might not attempt in the face of a brilliant sunrise. Remember, the colors of a sunrise only last for a few minutes at a time, and they are constantly changing. A beautiful color explosion might last only a minute or two, sometimes even less. A colorful sunrise doesn’t give me much time to think, let alone experiment. But on cloudy days, the scene doesn’t change much from minute to minute, so I can take my time and try a few different things. I am able to see things I might not normally see, and put more thought into what I’m doing.
And perhaps the biggest benefit of my cloudy day experiments is that they give me ideas of what I can do when those mornings come when there is a brilliantly colorful and striking sunrise. Having experimented with certain scenes, and understanding their small nuances, I can confidently recreate them under the pressure of those intense moments when I feel that sense of urgency to capture the sunrise and do it well. When there isn’t much time to think, it’s nice to know I don’t have to.
Standing atop this large staircase made me think about how far I’ve come so far with this project, and how far I can still go. I don’t know exactly where this project will take me, but I’m excited to find out. There is no telling what tomorrow will bring.
These steps are a bit of an icon in Hoboken. Most people refer to them as the “Stevens stairs” since they lead up the side of a large cliff to the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology, connecting the highest peak in town to the waterfront. Climbing these stairs is not exactly easy, and if you have a sense of humor, you might find it amusing the way each wood plank bends slightly under the weight of each step you take. This experience can be either frightening or it can be fun, depending on your demeanor.
With clouds covering the sun this morning, a street lamp shone with an orange glow, having its moment to replace the sun for a brief period of time.