Do Extraordinary Things
It was a mostly clear morning but a few clouds at the mouth of the Hudson River drew me in that direction.
The sun is now rising far enough south that I can sometimes orient my shot toward downtown Manhattan as opposed to Midtown where most of my shots have been aimed.
The sun came up with a beam of light piercing the horizon.
Though it was an overcast morning, there came a time when I could see some occasional blotches of pink through the breaks in the clouds. Eventually, a large opening passed in front of me, just seconds before the colors were swallowed up for good.
It’s a strange feeling to know that you are seeing something that will last for only a few seconds and then never be seen again. I’m happy to be capturing some of these moments, but it makes me think all about moments of life which pass us by so quickly.
My experiences every morning have amplified my understanding of “living every moment”. I feel like that is such an overused term, and lot of people go around saying it without really knowing what it means. It’s easy to just go about your everyday life and barely notice the passing time, even looking forward to it, but put yourself in a situation where every second truly does count and you’ll understand what it really means to live.
Every cloud has an orange lining.
After three days in a row of perfectly clear skies, I was happy to see some clouds this morning. Without darkness, we can’t appreciate the light. Without clouds, we can’t appreciate the sun. And without the sun, we can’t appreciate the clouds.
Persevere.
As much as I’ve accomplished so far this year, I always have a little bit of envy for those people outside running each morning. Those people are tough.
It was cold and very windy this morning, and I didn’t even want to get out of bed, let alone go outside. But there they were, outside running, many of whom were out there long before I ever stepped out the door.
They don’t need a big audacious photography project to get them out there. It’s just what they do.
But even though those people are way tougher than me, we do share a common trait:
We persevere.
And that’s why I photographed these pink flowers today. While everything else around is dead or dying, these flowers have remained. I often walk past these flowers in amazement, wondering if or when they would succumb to the cold, but they have not. I’ve been wanting to feature them in one of my morning photos, but I never quite knew what to say about them, until now.
And by the way, I will be joining the ranks of the morning runners in the near future, so that I, too, can be that tough.
For some reason I’ve always been drawn to empty benches, as they’ve been a recurring subject of mine ever since my early days of photography over 15 years ago.
An empty bench gives the feeling of being alone, but that is not the same as feeling lonely. Loneliness is sadness over being alone. But being alone can be a wonderful and empowering thing if you have the right mindset.
I’ve always looked at empty benches as inviting–a place to go and be alone for a few moments and experience the scene, to allow yourself to be immersed in the world around you, to be present, calm, and at peace with oneself.
Today’s photo is similar a similar composition, but a different location, to one of my more popular photos from early June. The golden sunrise gives the appearance of warmth, but make no mistake it was crisp and cold this morning.
I took a series of photos at this location, expecting that my final version was going to have to be HDR because of the dynamic range of the scene, but I am happy to say this image is not HDR.