Sunrise No. 876 of 2,000+
- Sunrise time: 6:05
- Azimuth: 58° ⇡
- Did the sun rise: Yes
- Was the sun visible: No
- Felt like: 62 ºF
- Air Temp: 62 ºF
- Humidity: 89%
- Wind: 0 mph ⇡
- Wind gust: 5 mph
Exposure
- 17mm
- f/22.0
- 13 sec
- 50
Clark Lambros Park, Marquette, MI
1.5 mile commute
📍 46° 34' 24" N, -87° 23' 34" W
Musings [404 words]
I have been dreading this photo edit for a long time. I kept coming across it and thought, “Not today, I’ll come back to it,” until it remained the only sunrise remaining for May 2021.
Unless you spend a lot of time in the woods, most people don’t ever come across a dead deer that isn’t roadkill. On this morning, it was bizarre, walking out at sunrise and seeing this deer lying dead at the water’s edge, with gentle ripples washing against it’s body.
Why here? What happened? Was it hit by a car and made it this far? Did it drown and wash up on shore? By my novice observation, the carcass was still very fresh.
Morbid, I know.
At 62º it was a very warm May sunrise, and with Memorial Day just a few days away, I knew it would be a busy beach day. When I wrapped up with sunrise I left a message with the Marquette parks department to let them know there was a carcass in the very spot kids would be looking to play and swim later in the day. I didn’t hear back, but I came back later that day and verified that it had been removed. It was memorable.
This remains my favorite photo from the morning, but I didn’t have the heart to publish it as the select photo for this morning.
However, I maintain that it’s an important photo to share. While I avoid the term or any association with it, by all basic purposes of this project, I am a nature photographer. And while it’s easy to find countless photos of an epic colorful sunrise… or rainbow, or northern lights, or sunset, and the list goes on, death is always removed from nature photography. But what is nature without death? I find it important to acknowledge this is as much a part of nature photography as the epic orange and purple mornings, as are the blizzards and inclement weather.
Between this photo, and the first dead gull photo, taken on the beach, during the same month, they are the best two examples I have of this dichotomy.
But there is something in our hearts, where we value and identify with some animals (deer) more than others.
Maybe one day I’ll go back and change what I published for this day, as this remains one of the most memorably mornings of these sunrise years.
Outtakes
Become a BugsyLand™ member
to view outtakes
What I love about today’s selection is the smog across the horizon. Not that I love the smog, but this photo best illustrates it. I find it a little ugly when the smog, or most likely forest fire smoke, rolls in.
Otherwise, notes about the dead deer can be found in the main body post for today.
Another classic mistake. With a narrow depth of field, I seem to be focused on the clouds and not the lighthouse, which is what I would like to be in focus. As a composition, I definitely like this photo a lot more with all the cloud texture, but going with the in-focus light.
