Beauty Contest or Something More?
Why this winter sunrise won my #1 Awesome Vote
Why is a sunrise awesome?
It’s easier said than done to pick a single sunrise out of the many I’ve photographed and label it as the ‘One’; the one that I remember for being awesome.
Aren’t all sunrises special? And what makes one, or anything else for that matter, worthy of an ‘awesome’ tag that carries meaning beyond happy appreciation,“ Hey, that’s really awesome!”?
Musing on this conundrum a memory bubbled to the surface of a specific sunrise, the one I call Red Carpet, a sea view oozing attention-grabbing glamour.
These are my recollections of the day.
First Impressions Are Everything
It’s early morning in late December and the second I catch sight of the horizon I stop abruptly and gawp. A low rise, blush pink sun, nestled like a pearl in an oyster shell, atop a milky slate grey sea under a dapple blue sky. The picture-perfect scene simply takes my breath away and the skyline is so unexpected all I can manage, for a while at least, is a lengthy vacant stare.
Moments later, after my brain jumps into gear, I am running as fast as my legs will carry me over the lawns, across the promenade, down the sloping pebble beach, and onto the sandy bit peeking out from under the waves.
My breathing moves in the rhythm of the waves lapping along the shoreline. As far as the eye can see the beachfront is empty, so I guess, at that moment, I am the only photographer in town ready to capture this sumptuous natural canvas, that echoes a French Impressionist painting.
Almost as a reflex action, I pan the camera for a soft motion blur effect that evokes a scene awash with brushstroke pastels and a delicate mood.
Beauty Contest or Something Else?
Is this the fairest sunrise of them all?
Is the Red Carpet sunrise more good-looking than those I featured in Mirrors in the Sand for instance?
And if so, is beauty how I measure ‘awesomeness’?
Am I altogether shallow?
Re-reading my description of the day the words that jump out are, “…simply takes my breath away…”
Here is the clue, because what I recall most vividly in the context of awe is my reaction, my genuine surprise, and spontaneous intake of breath.
I was in shock.
Then in awe.
Here’s why.
I had preconceived ideas about where the sun was ‘supposed’ to rise on a beach I know as a friend; definitely somewhere along the eastern horizon, like the ones featured Mirrors in the Sand. But, on the day in question, the sun’s position in the sky was plain ‘wrong’. The rosy glow was way outside the ‘normal’ range, sitting deep down towards the southeast and slung low on the horizon; hovering, intensifying in colour, and blending sea and sky into a rippling red carpet.
My mind told me this vision wasn’t supposed to be happening.
My belief about where the sun was ‘supposed’ to be turned on its head.
Also, the view was mesmerising, so much so that it felt as if everything in the world, including me, was part of a bubbling primordial soup.
And therein lies the other problem, the second anomaly.
The vanity metrics just didn’t add up. Winter has long, cold, dark nights followed by long, cold days and blanket grey skies day on day, but this seascape was just too extraordinary, too lovely to fit the season.
It was only later that logic kicked in to explain the season as the cause of the sun's position, but in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
My Formula for Awesomeness
And so my reflections about what awe means to me have taught me something new. I now have a personal formula for #awesome and it goes like this:
Personal Belief + New Situation + Intense Experience = Shock & Awe.
Awe is deeper than skin deep.
It’s personal.
It's neural.
My Red Carpet experience was triggered by something out of the ordinary that my brain couldn’t compute.
And there was an element of intensity too, an intense encounter with nature, that felt private, immersive, and outside of time almost.
Officially, mind-blown!
Post Script
Oh, and guess what happened next?
Enter stage left …
The blush pink morning kept on delivering one delight after another: a gorgeous reminder, to let go of expectations, live in the moment, and embrace the unexpected, the place where awesome can and does happen.
WOOF!
With thanks to K. Barrett and the For Awe publication for the inspiration and challenge.
