This is the shot I use to represent this newsletter. I don’t think it suits the newsletter thematically, really. I would love for my writing to be wonderfully mysterious, full of barely-glimpsed depths and strangely unique erudition. It’s not and I’m not: I’m a pretty simple thinker in the end who has a lamentable habit of saying too much on the way to the same conclusions that a lot of other people have reached.
I use the shot because I love it, that’s all. I’ve frequently discussed the virtues of getting up early and chasing the “golden hour” light (while often lamenting that I don’t quite have the energy and drive to do that so much these days) but I’ve never had quite the morning that I had taking these photographs on Harris Lake in upstate New York. I was up before dawn at our campground and from that moment on every single passing minute presented a different image. The mist roiled over at treetop height in waves while rising like steam from the waters and wetlands. The hinting light of dawn below the eastern horizon and then from a sun that occasionally broke through the fog kept shifting, lighting the sky with golden fire and then suddenly darkening into deep blues and greys.
Every other morning we were there, a few fishermen and hikers were out and about that early but this one time I was by myself. The loons we heard the rest of the time were silent. Nothing moved, nothing made noise. It was as close to being awake in a dream as I’ve experienced, and for once I don’t look at the photos I took and think of their artifice but instead think of how close they look to my memory of that private hour or so.
Beautiful.