“Arise, awake, stop not until your goal is achieved.” ~ Swami Vivekananda

It had been a long week for me with travels to Umtata, Port St John’s and Pietermaritzburg. Last night I unwound at home with family, a homemade chicken curry, a few cold ones and a lovely Tullamore Dew 12 year old whiskey.

Henry J Starbuck and Louis En Marie Helberg had planned a trip to Anstey’s Beach (Durban, South Africa) to shoot the sunrise this morning. I was low on energy, looked outside before bed, saw no clouds and thought, “Good luck guys, I’m sleeping in”.

The passion bug bit me at 03:00 but I still thought, “No ways chaps, there aren’t any clouds outside!” A stint on Lightroom and Photoshop just didn’t help matters; my camera wouldn’t take a “No”.

I messaged our informal gang at 04:54 and “bought” my way back into the shoot.

Henry and I met on the beach at 05:45.

We were soon greeted by one of those sunrises that you don’t see very often; a really blessed sunrise with pinks, blues, yellows and oranges.

Canon 6D, 17-40mm L-series lens, ISO 100, F9, 5 sec