I got up earlier on Monday, taking this lovely shot of Sunset Beach before heading out to the gym, and then decided to keep it up for at least a week.
Tuesday, it was Beach Avenue. Wednesday I switched to the east side of the bridge and took a fantastic shot of traffic in the rain. Thursday I captured the seawall and the other side of Beach Avenue. Then more of the skyline on Friday.
Saturday the weather cleared up, so I took the time to look up when the sun rises at this time of year (shortly after 8:00AM FYI) and headed out to shoot the sunrise. It was fucking gorgeous! I took tons of photos and posted five… but in hindsight I think I would only have posted this one, taken at 8:06. It shows the wibbly blob of the soon-to-be-visible sun, and it’s got more skyline, which is nice. I need to edit! A small number of photos can have a greater impact than a large number of too-similar photos. Well, live and learn.
And on Sunday, another gorgeous sunrise, followed by a gorgeous foggy sunset.
So there we are. Verdict? I like it, and I want to keep it up! Taking photos in the early morning means less pressure on me to find something else later. Not to mention, it’s getting me out of the apartment earlier. Who knew it could work that way? All I needed was to find the right motivator.
Ten years ago, shortly after moving downtown, I started taking a bunch of photos of Sunset Beach at around the same time, from around the same vantage point. It was pretty irregular, and I kept it up on and off over the next 2 years. It was a really interesting exercise in seeing how this bit of Vancouver changed day by day: the tides, the foliage, the weather, the snow, all of it. I loved it. I’d like to start it up again, though I know it won’t work the same on Instagram. Maybe I could have a special hashtag? Or put them in stories, which I’ve never used before? And if I take a photo of Sunset Beach every morning, will I be less likely to seek out other photos the rest of the day? Will my feed skew too hard to Sunset Beach?
Or maybe I’m overthinking this. All I know is, I’ll be up early tomorrow to snap a picture from the same vantage point as tonight. After that, we’ll take it day by day.