Day 3: Dawn

Alternate title: Discomfort

Under normal circumstances, I’m an early bird. The pandemic has interfered with this a bit – there’s nowhere to go and I’m usually fighting off some sort of pandemic-induced funk the minute I open my eyes. Oh, and it’s cold. Wind chill of -39 kind of cold.

Anyway. Back to what I’d normally be doing. Early mornings have long been reserved for some form of exercise, meditation, baking, reading, long walks in search of pastry, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Photographs have always been a happy by-product of these walks, but never the focus.

A few years ago, in another lifetime that looked very different from this one, I had a studio visit (this sounds silly because I don’t have a studio, but apparently that’s what they’re called) with a photographer. We had an interesting conversation that has much more meaning to me now that I am more familiar with the constraints of a full-time job on creative work, which quickly gets relegated to the margins of the typical workweek. As you can imagine, this leaves photographers, who are largely preoccupied with light, to work after work, in the darkest hours. Fortunately, I love making photographs at night, but when it overtakes your whole body of work, you start to wonder what things look like at other times of day, in another light.

That was today’s goal: spring out of bed, go outside, even if it is incredibly cold. Get reacquainted with what the world looks like as light gets added, not taken away.

I didn’t go far and I made some photos of buildings that I had previously photographed. Nothing special. I don’t even think the composition is all that different. You can see one of them on my Instagram account.

I was home by 7:04 am, well before sunrise, but it was worthwhile. If nothing else, coffee tastes better when you’ve crossed something off your to-do list.