“A glorious sunset, a beautiful flower, the delightful songs of happy birds, the silence of a moonlit night, the smile of a little child, the placid waters of a lake, wooded mountains, sweet music and devotional songs, a noble, generous act-all these elevate the mind, remind us of God and increase our faith” ~ Sri Swami Sivananda

My Canon 6D, now decidedly jealous after seeing that the baby Canon G3X has been getting all the attention since purchase for 4 straight months now, begged me last night for a sunrise photo shoot.

The weather report promised partly cloudy to partly sunny and if true, this should have guaranteed a spectacular sunrise in the land of magic / Thompson’s Bay.

The upshot is that it was drizzling and the sun hardly showed this morning.

Despite it being lovely to get out and about while still dark and be on the ocean’s edge to witness the break of dawn, I was still hoping (desperately), all the way back to Durban, that I could at least retrieve one cool photo out of the grey and wet sunrise.

Well I’m happy with the attached result; the trip was overall really worthwhile.

The strange thing about driving to sunrise photo shoots early in the morning, especially the ones some distance from home, and the gaps in between shooting (if not socialising with others), is that one gets time to ponder about things.

My latest ponder was about people who incessantly preach and broadcast love and kindness but do little to act on it, and then those people who preach nothing but silently act out loving kindness.

I also thought that one can get quite lost in fervently preaching and advertising, and intentionally or unintentionally fail to act.

I also wondered about meditation and drawing closer to God if just for a short while.

Meditating on one’s breath is very challenging, and getting to and sitting inside some spiritual buildings have challenges of their own (for some of us only of course).

The reason for wondering about all of this was that I have again, like I often do, analysed the enhanced concentration that some can achieve in photography; especially landscape photography (shooting alone in a quiet venue usually at sunrise or sunset).

There are also moments, every blue moon or so, when the sun, moon, stars, clouds, wind, water, flowers, landscape and other things conspire as one to draw one’s mind (soul) into the moment, at which time an extreme feeling of gratitude and love can be felt by the witness.

So I guess that the trick is to find that one activity, where ever and whatever it may be, that helps pull your mind together, and generates feelings of gratitude and love.

Canon 6D, 30 sec. F16, ISO 50