Running Toward the Light

Running Toward the Light

simonelipscombWhen I opened the curtains and door to the porch off my bedroom this morning the light was a soft, deep orange. I peeked out and looked around the corner to the east and the sky was a palette of brilliant color. To add to the dramatic beauty, fog hugged the ground beneath the oak trees.

I hurriedly threw on shorts and a hoodie and sprinted upstairs to get my tripod. I couldn’t find the ‘L’ bracket and hex wrench that attaches it to my camera. Dang it! Where is that thing? I said in a not-so-gentle-voice. I couldn’t find it so I grabbed an attachment for my old tripod and ran downstairs, tripping and nearly falling on the stairs.

My camera was still in the kitchen where I left it last night when I came home from a music event yesterday afternoon so I quickly attached the tripod foot and headed outside, grabbing my old tripod from the garage. As I was walking to the pasture fence I was attempting to extend the legs of the tripod. Of course, the legs wouldn’t extend (the reason I replaced it after a busy summer of salt-water shooting last year that basically ended its life). The sun was rapidly rising and the brilliant blue and orange and yellow hues would be gone within minutes.

simonelipscomb (4)Screw it, I mumbled and threw the tripod to the ground, adjusted the camera settings and started shooting. It was frustrating because I love very long exposures in light such as this as it enriches the colors. But this morning, I was doing the best I could given the time constraints and equipment snafus.

Challenges like I experienced at sunrise today are really quite funny. A part of me was calmly watching myself scurrying and hurrying and I knew that all of the effort might be for nothing….I could miss the sweet light. But as beautiful as the sunrise was, I had to make the effort.

Things in life that are beautiful are indeed worth the effort.

simonelipscomb (1)

 

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