In an attempt to outsmart morning traffic I get up earlier than usual - a plan I have been trying to perfect for years. It hardly ever pays off, yet I keep trying. Positive thinking. Stubborness. Stupidity. Take your pick.
The morning is hesitant and veiled in grey. Sounds are muffled. Colours are muted. Hints become shilouettes become people. Their breath, coming from mouths and nostrils, manifests in tiny clouds above their heads. It makes them look like steaming dragons. I turn up my collar and try to escape the chill by walking faster than I normally would. I get to the car and swap the cold outside with the cold inside. "You can leave your hat on" ... "woolly hat", in my case. Traffic is tolerable. The beast still slumbers and soon the city disappears behind me in the mist.
The sky clears up and there is a hint of pink on the horizon. I take a different route today. Here the streets are completely empty. White frost covers naked fields, left and right. Beyond the fields to my left a moving mass of headlights glances over from the nearby main road. The convoy ploughs through the landscape like a huge, fluorescent caterpillar. A dead rabbit lies in the middle of the road. The winner of this race turned out to be the lorry. It shouldn't have dawdled. Crows peck at its tattered carcass and are only briefly disturbed by my passing by.
I remove my woolly hat - a thing of rare beauty - while the radio and the aircon battle over audio supremacy. I turn up the latter, because the news are bleak and I like it warm. Driving towards the day I witness the most spectacular November sunrise. I stop and take a picture. The outcome is a pale reflection of reality and bears testament to why I should never even think about picking photography as a profession ...
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