Arriving In the Stillness of the Very Early Morning...

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There’s nothing like being out and about very early in the morning… it’s doesn’t really matter where you are in the world:  there is a distinctly different atmosphere that pervades even the busiest city at 6.00 or 7.00 a.m. in the morning that completely disappears by 8.00 a.m. when the volume on the hum of traffic rises, the number of vehicles swells and depending on the place and the time of the year, the sun has risen.

We landed around 6.00 a.m. in the morning and even with a long walk through the terminal and the usual necessities of clearing customs and baggage retrieval,  it’s quiet enough at this hour that we are already getting into a taxi  45  minutes later.

The sky may have looked bright and sunny when I looked out of the aeroplane window, but on the ground it’s definitely looking darker as the sun peeps over the horizon and through the trees.

There’s something special about sunshine in the very early morning,  the rays emit a softer eerie glow that  is peaceful and exudes a sense of calm which only lasts for a short while …

…it’s the stillness before the full intensity bursts out and the pace of life and brightness switch to full volume, full colour, full strength and full on.

The trees are in silhouette  as the sun shines through them,  ideal subjects for my “interesting tree for possible sketching” file and later the soft light of the morning sun glistens on the Marina Bay Sands,  the Singapore Flyer and the Botanical Gardens as we glide by on the motorway.

Probably you think I’m mad… but in my defence the Dutch are famous for their obsession with light, so my artistic soul must be simply following it’s destiny imprinted on my DNA.  (…or maybe not, but I’ll blame my DNA anyway so that you don’t think I’ve lost my marbles).

It’s  wasted on the kids, they are both cuddled up in the back seat sleeping, time zones and jet-lag having gotten the better of them within minutes of getting into the car.

The photos I took from the plane and the one here were all taken in a sequence of say two hours… and yet the light in all of them is so vastly different. We live in a fascinating world.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)