A new morning, a new day, a new year

The blue hour - early in the morning on my porch

I belong to a photo group called 52Frames. Every week we create an album based on a specific challenge. Lately I have come to realize that my creative journey with this group has slowly become much more than just about improving my photography.

We recently celebrated the Jewish New Year here in Israel and I have been filled with utter dread. Two weeks ago in my Pilates class our teacher and the other students happily wished each other “Shana Tova”  (a good year).One of the students even said out loudly, “I have a feeling that this is going to be a great year!”

And then the thought: “No, it won’t”... popped up into my head. But I just kept to myself

I was positive that it is going to be an awful year. Israel is going to experience another war, or there are going to a lot of terrorists attacks (and sadly there indeed was one) or someone close to me is going to die and just a thousand horrible things are going to happen.

This is actually so out of character for me. I am the type of person who thinks that an half-empty glass means that you should drink up already so that it can be refilled again. I think that entire clouds are silver and not just their lining.

I even have this thing where I look at grumpy-looking people in the street, wait until they make eye-contact and then flash them a dazzling smile. It is such a human instinct to smile back, that ALL of these people always smile back at me. Some of them do have a puzzling look on their face though, but that just makes me laugh out loud.

So where was this horrible feeling of dread coming from?

I did not even made time to take my photo for this week’s challenge, the blue hour. The blue hour is that small period of time just before sunrise and after sunset when the sky is a beautiful blue colour. Luckily I slept well last night and woke up early this morning and decided to finally take my blue hour photo.

I just stayed on my porch to take some photos because I have to get two girls, at different times, up for school. The planet Venus was still visible in the sky and I was happily surprised to see it. It slowly disappeared as the dark sky turned more and more blue but then I started to notice other things through my camera’s viewfinder. 

Some really early commuters left for work, their headlights creating beautiful bokeh lights against the blue sky. And then there were some joggers and a cyclist and someone taking the dogs for a walk, and the guy working in the laundry across the street coming to work. I was actually amazed to see so many people up and about their day, so early in the morning. There were a lot of birds flying around, some in group formation, others just flitting about on their own. They seemed so.. well, happy to be flying around and to say hello to the new day. The yellow light of the first sun rays turned the sky purplish and then the first bus of the day rumbled down the street. I noticed how pretty the weed in the container looked against the purple sky. I really should pull it out already but this morning it created a beautiful silhouette. The sky was becoming more and more yellow and I leaned over the railing to try and capture some cute little clouds to my right.

Even weeds look pretty during the blue hour

The sun was just about to rise and I wanted to try and capture those first golden rays. But then I heard my alarm go off and I went back inside to wake up my daughter. Later, as I sipped my first coffee of the morning I finally realized that the day had flashed me a humongous smile and I just couldn’t help but smile back. I have a feeling that this is going to be a great year.