Photos: The beach at dawn in southern Spain

I was out walking and shooting this morning. I got up around 5.30am and after drinking coffee I headed straight out.

It was cold and dark as I closed the door — the smell of the sea air permeating the air, and I breathed in deeply. It’s a beautiful thing to experience, and I always, always feel grateful that I have got up and out the house.

The coast here is a series of bays, with big cliffs and rock formations jutting out into the sea. It’s up to those places, with their boulders of primeval rock, and looking down onto the undulating blue-green waves, that I love to walk.

Sometimes I just sit and look out across the vast velvet blanket of water, smelling the earthy pine of the trees that plant themselves precipitously close to the edges of the cliffs.

I walked through the empty beach-side streets, and walked up and up to get to the wide sweeping views, across the bays below and to the towns far, far beyond mine. I was waiting for the sunrise, for that slow melodic dawning of light, which seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Being in this moment, of morning, of feeling the energy of the night turning into day, I feel ready for the day. It’s something I love to do, as a daily practise almost, as I so enjoy sharing my experiences as a photography teacher and artist.

I often wonder if I should be getting up so early. It means that I sacrifice the end of my day, wilting like a flower around 9pm, and am only really good for light activities like reading.

But I know, too, that this rhythm of being here at the day’s beginning and the rhythm it forges within me of being creative is what I am really here on this earth for.

Being creative is a commitment we make to living a deeper life. It’s not just the odd hours or moments when we do photography. Being creative permeates everything we do; it makes everything more invigorating and feel more connected.

 

Have a wonderful day — wherever you are doing and wherever you are, if you liked this piece please clap for it (one or 50 times!) We would be most grateful.

Anthony and Diana

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gogh