Dawnwatch 06/03/2012 China Dawn

Dawn from an East-Facing Balcony in Sydney

I know I said I was working backwards, but when the first major dawn spectacular of autumn struck, after a week of washouts, I had to record what I saw and felt immediately.  Frankly, I was ready to give up dawnwatching until summer came around again.  You’ll note in my shots where the sun appears, it’s hidden behind that oak tree, disappearing north fast.  I won’t be making videos of the dawn where you can’t see the sun rise.  But on this day, this dawn restored my faith.

China Dawn:  Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Dawn’s first light revealed a line of high cloud.  This later proved significant in that throughout this dawn, the major clouds stayed high above the tree line.  They never lowered to touch the telegraph pole.  The zoom function of my camera was superfluous.  This was a B-I-G dawn.  More clouds rolled in and then out but never fully dissipated - a good thing for a dawnwatcher. 

The sky grew lighter on small puffs of cloud, turning them delicate shades of pink against a China blue sky.  This is the sort of dawn that has inspired Chinese artists for centuries.  If you can imagine the oak tree on the left were a grey cliff or mountain slope, you’d be looking at one of those landscape scene depicted in ancient Chinese vertical scroll paintings background, midground, foreground.  From the China blue sky to the cherry blossom pink and pearl clouds, this dawn shrieked that it was a China dawn.

As the sun made an appearance, the clouds thickened into larger cumulous puffs and turned butter yellow.  The contrast of the butter yellow against the China blue sky - glorious!

All good things have to end.  Sunrise gave way to morning.  The clouds became a thick, smothering grey blanket - with two angry holes for eyes.  More rain promised, which we don’t need.  Across New South Wales, the countryside is flooding, and Warragamba Dam in Sydney is overflowing.  The past week has been one washout dawn after another.  Today’s dawn, at least, was an inspirational treasure.

Catch up with the video on YouTube here.

Souvenir posters of this dawn are available from the Gagothicfunk store at Zazzle.com as displayed below:

Don’t forget your humble photographer also writes fantasy adventure fiction under the name of S E Champenby.  Paperbacks and epubs available from Lulu.com at S E Champenby’s store.