Year of the Sunrise
2022 2023
My name is Bugsy Sailor, and on January 1, 2019 I began a resolution to watch and photograph every sunrise of the year. I sought the sun, but what I found was so much more. So much, in fact, that I have yet to miss a sunrise.
What started as Year of the Sunrise has grown into life of the sunrise. To date I have photographed 1,487 consecutive sunrises, primarily from the shores of Lake Superior in Marquette County, Michigan.
Along the way, sunrise has slowed my approach to life, stretched my heart, introduced me to love, given spirit to my days, navigated me through a global pandemic, and has given witness to more beauty than I, or any amount of photos, can express. There have been -35º windchills, downpours, thunderstorms, and blizzards, but no matter how gray the day, the sun still rises.
While photographs have been the tangible output of these sunrise years, it has never been about the photos. It has been about the wind on my face, the sand between my toes, and feeling the sensation of sunrise while being present in nature. I stand firmly in saying, no photograph of a sunrise is better than the experience of sunrise.
Latest updates:
- YOTS IV is a wrap!
- 11 consecutive years of celebrating hatsuhinode
- Figuring out what to do for 2023
- You can now brose by individual month and date
- Temperature averages are now being compiled across the entire project
- I’ve begun work on browsing by location
- Now that there are four completed years, with more and more content, trying to figure out a better navigation structure for this site

2019
2020
2021
2022
Dec 29, 2020

8:33 a.m. • Sugarloaf Mountain
Feb 22, 2020

6:37 a.m. • The Lakefill
Feb 23, 2020

6:36 a.m. • Sunrise Avenue
Feb 14, 2022

7:54 a.m. • Black Rocks