Sunrise on Oyster Bay

The promise of a beach vacation: sun, surf, and relaxation!

Wrong!!! It's just the opposite for me.

On this morning, during our last trip to Chincoteague, I had decided the night before to try and sleep in for a change. You know, rest and relaxation while on vacation. Things were going accordingly to plan when I hear Dottie mutter, "Oh, the colors are beautiful!". Of course that pierced the slim veil of sleepiness and I was fully awake in an instant. And I am so glad that she called it out! What a beautiful sunrise it turned out to be. There was not a breath of breeze and Oyster Bay was totally calm. There were just the right amount of clouds in the sky to catch and illuminate the fire the sun was giving off and herald it's approach. Clothing was hastily adorned. The camera and phones were quickly gathered. And out to the deck and dock we scurried.

And then a great debate begins to rage inside me again as it sometimes wants to. How often do we take the time to stop and mark the passing of our time with simple things like watching the sun rise or set during our days? Or just sit and watch a cloud glide by on its way to somewhere else? This is a gift of nature that is not often duplicated. Should I just stand here with my mouth open and stare with absolute amazement at the beauty before me, or should I try to preserve this with the camera? Should I sit back passively and experience and truly enjoy this magical moment of place and time happening before me or disconnect myself from it and try to capture this beauty and lose some of that magical experience? Of course, in the end I decided to preserve this with my camera and phone. And yes, I also took some moments to just take in, experience and truly enjoy the beautiful scene as well. But sometimes, some things just can't be captured in an image and "magic" happens to be one of those things. But if we are lucky enough, an image can evoke the feeling or mood of the time of it's taking. And this image definitely does that for me!

This is the image for February in the 2024 Bugeye Visions Calendar. It is now available in the galleries for sale as an image or you can use it to make your own 2024 Bugeye Visions Calendar.