Wild Weekly Photo Challenge - Sunrise / DP Challenge Image-vs-Text

“About 45 minutes before sunrise, light is already starting to push back the dark. I open my camera and let nature paint me a picture.”

Steve Coleman

BEFORE THE SUN

This week’s Let’s be Wild photo challenge is sunrise, and as a photographer – despite my intense dislike of the early morning – I have seen and shot many of them.  I’ve photographed daybreak many times here on Kiawah Island, and celebrated sunrises as far away as the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia,  Glacier Bay in Alaska, and over the glowing red rocks of Sedona. Of all of these and more, there is one in particular that for me rises above all the rest.

FIRST LIGHT

“The sun is new each day.”

Heraclitus

We were staying in yurt-like structures hours from civilization at the foot of Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia.  It was freezing cold and pitch black with darkness.  We had no guarantee that there would even BE a sunrise, because the Torres are often shrouded with cloud cover, but we were there just in case, hoping for a bit of luck.

HERE COMES THE SUN

“After every storm the sun will shine”

William R. Alger

We were rewarded with a brilliant series of moments I hope never to forget.  The sun turned the granite of the peaks from darkest black, to beautiful blue, to soft grey to a brilliant rosy pink. It finally moved back behind the clouds we’d heard so much about, leaving the towers once again looking dark and mysterious, yet somehow beckoning further exploration.  

LET THE SUN SHINE

“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”

John Muir

We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene as it unfolded before us.  We spent a fantastic 5 days hiking and exploring the towers and the incredible landscape around them, but never again was there a sunrise without total cloud cover.

Helen Keller said “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt with the heart. “  In this case, I both saw and felt with my heart the most beautiful of moments.  And I carry it with me still.

I’m participating in the onlineadventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggersThis week’s Challenge is: Sunrise, so get up early this week and take some shots of the sky!

I have also posted this in the DP Challenge of Image-vs-Text, here as I think the images are part of the larger story.

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