It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Sunrise
A follower’s perspective
This morning started like every other morning.. Don’t these days feel an awful lot like the movie “Groundhog’s Day?” Every day we stay at home, chat with our phone friends, do our daily work, maybe drink too much coffee and get jittery and wish we could go literally anywhere but the next room, make dinner/ eat at some point, and eventually lay our head down upon that wonderful creation known as a pillow so we can hopefully sleep after all the coffee and then start this same day all over again!
Whew! Living the same day over and over again (even writing that) is exhausting!
But like I said, this is how today started. Just like every day. But today, I didn’t see that orange glow from the sun. Don’t get me wrong, mid-December Northern Minnesota sunrises aren’t always the fire red and wrap-around color. We’ve had quite a few dull and dreary dark days. But I realized today, not having that spine-shivering color, made me remember the color. I sat and thought to myself, no sunrise today. (Shouldn’t it be called something more like, no colorful display from the earth’s rotation around the sun this hour?) But I remember those recent days that were totally exhilarating. There actually have been days of Color, I mean Color with capital “C”. Where it’s everywhere. The whole entire sky is lit up in this insane display. Almost like a little kid running in to family reunion, jumping on a table in the middle of everything and shouting “I’m Here now! Everybody Look! It’s Me! I’m Here. Aren’t you Happy to see me?!!” And of course, if it was a little kid, we would all giggle, maybe applaud and cheer on this display. We love that confidence in littles – it’s so innocent. I wonder, if we had the opportunity to see that little kid do this every day, every meal, would we get sick of it? Eventually start to ignore what we once applauded? Because – wait for it – we do this to that beautiful, applause-worthy explosion of light and color almost every morning.
How could we?!
Because for wow!
For breath-taking!
I think we all know how; We forget, or we sleep in or we just plain stop finding value in every day because it’s set on repeat.
But here is the great Photographer known as Christian Dalbec. (I think I might start calling him Sparky – we love the Griswold’s..)
Christian is living in the same world we do. Same thing, everyday. But Christian sets his alarm to go off an hour and a half before the light breaks over the horizon. Christian gets up every morning and drives to wherever his instincts tell him. And he FINDS the sunrise. Every day.
Yes, there may not always be that crazy display of colors yet to be named, but he finds Something. Whether it’s a wave crashing, a slice of a moment that sets itself apart from the other moments, or maybe it’s a branch or icicle that somehow matters, right now. Sometimes it’s an owl in the woods or a coyote or a deer. He still captures the essence of sunrise.
I’m pretty sure, anyone reading this feels that Christian is a true artist. It’s fairly obvious from his images.
But, in my (admittedly, off-the-charts biased) opinion, what makes him a truly great artist is not the number of Instagram followers or the post likes or shares, it’s the way he brings us into his world. – Which just so happens to be our world, we just forgot what it was like to really look at it.
No matter what is happening, whether it’s stress or busyness, maybe it’s just the simple monotony of same-ness, whatever is going on in your world. We can all benefit from seeing Christian’s world. It’s extra real, it’s extra hopeful and it’s definitely Ours.
There is always a sunrise. Even if there isn’t a sunrise.
Stay safe out there, nourish your body and soul, and above all; Watch out for deer.
P.S. I wrote a book! If you enjoy my blog posts, our stories and Christian’s pictures, you can find it here: http://wwhttps://christiandalbec.com/?product=following_the_photographer
