22 December 2006 Yule
Daylight is just now really dawning as I write my thoughts on this beautiful, crisp (okay, cold) winter solstice morning. It’s actually warmer in Wisconsin where our extended family lives! (39 here, 45 there!) I had set my alarm for just after 6 a.m. and got up, donned gay apparel (okay, make that warm apparel!) and headed outside to snap photos. Atlantis Terrace is a great street name when you’re captioning photos! Unfortunately, it’s not such a great location for viewing sunrise. The house faces south, so I walked up the street, to the west and shot back along the length of the street. The holiday lights in my block were all dark. But just a few houses up, there were quite a few, and I had perceived the picture in my head with the light of the natural sunrise in the distance, and the blinky, blurry Christmas lights in the foreground. The horizon here, is too cluttered to actually see the sunrise, so the lights add interest to the photo. At first, I was distracted by my shadow, and I actually took quite a few different versions of this photo before I was satisfied. But, back indoors, with a warm cup of coffee next to the computer, I decided I really rather like the shadow, so I used one of my first shots of the morning. Except for the want of a tripod (again!) I’m not unhappy with the photo. But, of course, I’d rather be photographing standing stones!
Today is the ninth anniversary of the MacRalph clan visit to the standing stones at Castlerigg, near Keswick, England. Kyle and the Babes (Ginger, Lisa & MB) and Kyle’s folks experienced that incredible solstice morning, shopped ’til we dropped in the afternoon, and not one of us will ever forget that day!
Happy Yule!
~MB
