Cold Sunrise

“It's too cold outside for angels to fly.” - Ed Sheeran

It was another cold start, and the interesting thing is that the temperature continued to DROP after the sun rose. It was in the teens F when I left the house, but when I was at work in the middle of the day, the temperature was around 10 degrees. I remember thinking that it didn't really seem as cold as it sounded; but then again, I was dressed in quite a few layers! As one must, at temperatures like that.

The bus dropped me off at the edge of campus just as the light in the sky was turning pink. I was hoping, hoping that the sky-pink would stay long enough for me to capture it. There was only one place I wanted to go to watch the sun rise: the Arboretum, behind the red elm. And so that is exactly where I went.

For a few months, I've been working on some shots from the behind the red elm. I like to watch the sun rise through the tree, and I try to frame it a bunch of different ways. There are two branches to left of center in the tree that form a heart, and if you get there at the right time, you can frame the rising sun right through the tree's "heart."

But on this day, I was a bit early for that. The sun was very low, and so instead, I framed it through the nearby pavilion, as the pinks and purples came and went in the sky over my head. It was very cold, and very quiet.

I was not the only one out and about in the chilly temperatures. When I came back over to campus at the work day's end, I took some more photos. I was noodling around West Halls, waiting for my bus, when I saw a squirrel sitting in a tree.

Its tail was wrapped tightly around the back of the squirrel and it seemed to be using the tail as both coat and hat. Nice job, squirrel! Stay warm, my furry friend!

The soundtrack tune: Ed Sheeran, with It's Too Cold Outside for Angels to Fly.