{"id":663,"date":"2009-10-22T07:38:32","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T15:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/22\/dawn\/"},"modified":"2009-10-25T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2009-10-25T15:48:10","slug":"dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/22\/dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love dawn.\u00a0 Besides the obvious fact that it\u2019s the start of the day, it\u2019s a way to get the day off to a beautiful start.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for spectacle, sunrises don\u2019t generally compete with sunsets.\u00a0 During the day the atmosphere gets churned and stirred up by the warming effect of the sun.\u00a0 Winds kick up dust, human activity creates pollution, all of which contributes to the warm rich colors of sunset.\u00a0 But during the night the atmosphere cools down and becomes quite,\u00a0 So that when the sun makes its way around the back side of our planet and is ready to begin its journey across the\u00a0 sky, the air is clean and calm.\u00a0 All of this makes for a clarity and purity that is the special realm of dawn.<\/p>\n

The general rule of thumb for photographing sunrises is to arrive about 45 minutes early.\u00a0 By this time all but the\u00a0 brightest stars have faded and the eastern sky is beginning to glow.\u00a0 I\u00a0 prefer to arrive even earlier, up to an hour and a half before sunrise.\u00a0 At this time I get to marvel at the night sky, enjoy the constellations that are familiar from my childhood and experience the entire progression from night to day.<\/p>\n

One of the wonders of sunrise is the light.\u00a0 It not only grows in intensity but its qualities undergo a marvelous transformation.\u00a0 And our experience of it also has a transforming effect.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a> The sun\u2019s rays touch the very upper reaches of our atmosphere.\u00a0 The earth below is bathed in a soft blue light, the purity of which will not be matched again for the rest of the day.\u00a0 The warming in the upper atmosphere stirs the first breezes of day down below.\u00a0 The temperature drops and we are glad we added that extra layer of clothing before venturing out.\u00a0 As we look out over the scene before us we feel the peace of a night of rest and regeneration.\u00a0 The bustle of the coming day has not yet intruded on our quite.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a>Our earth continues to turn, bringing the sun closer to the horizon.\u00a0 The sky in the east begins to take on a yellow glow.\u00a0 It comes on slowly, almost imperceptibly.\u00a0 You really aren\u2019t aware of the change until you look around and realize that the world is emerging from the cool shadows of night.\u00a0 The colors of day are beginning to cast their first tentative hues.\u00a0 The earth begins to glow.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a> Now the power of the sun, still unseen, begins to cast its influence on our world.\u00a0 The eastern sky glows a brilliant yellow in anticipation of its arrival and this warm light begins to transform our world.\u00a0 It flows into the nooks and crannies, even dispelling the night from the shadows.\u00a0 We feel our excitement build in anticipation of the sun\u2019s arrival.\u00a0 A new energy, the energy of daytime, begins to flow through our\u00a0 bodies.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a> Moments before the sun appears above the horizon the earth is ready to receive it. The world waits in anticipation and so do we.\u00a0 We are eager for its warming rays.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a>You don\u2019t have to be looking to the east to know that the sun has peeked above the horizon.\u00a0 You can sense it.\u00a0 You can feel it.\u00a0 All east-facing things gladly receive the first rays from the sun that is still only partially showing itself.\u00a0 The infant beams reach out and gently, tenderly kiss the earth.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a>But oh how quickly that changes.\u00a0 The sun quickly bursts upon the earth.\u00a0 Shadows emerge and grow in strength and what was uniform a few moments before is now cast in rapidly building contrast.<\/p>\n

\"(c)<\/a> In a matter of moments the full life-giving power of the sun is upon us.\u00a0 The world is fully awake.\u00a0 They day has begun.\u00a0 We humans will go about our business, our struggles and triumphs.\u00a0 We will delude ourselves into thinking that our efforts are of monumental significance.\u00a0 But the natural cycle we just witnessed exceeds all our puny endeavors.\u00a0 The sunrise we just witnessed has been happening on this planet for the last four and a half billion years, day in, day out.\u00a0 And the sun that is now climbing into the sky has driven the weather that created miraculous places like Bryce Canyon, places we can experience and reconnect with the best part of ourselves.<\/p>\n

Especially at dawn.<\/p>\n

(531)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love dawn.\u00a0 Besides the obvious fact that it\u2019s the start of the day, it\u2019s a way to get the day off to a beautiful start.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for spectacle, sunrises don\u2019t generally compete with sunsets.\u00a0 During the day the atmosphere gets churned and stirred up by the warming effect of the sun.\u00a0 Winds … Continue reading “Dawn”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9Nl7-dawn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}