New Winter Morning, Venice | Mark Lindsay
There is nothing more optimistic than the new morning. The air is refreshed, the earth renewed. When one is traveling, a morning walk alone in a foreign land is best part of any day. Winter mornings are particularly precious; the sun low and stingy, red and gold light cascading into deep shadows of cobalt blue. Morning, and all is possible. Briskness alerts us—the new world is ours.
One steps out from the cocoon of a snug room and onto the street. A place awakens. We are alive in a new world where everything seems different, a new mystic morning where anything can happen.
Sometimes, after long months of routine and perfunctory activity, I dream of my early mornings in Venice—brisk winter mornings where the cold air makes me crave thick espresso with maybe a dash of smooth grappa. Something to curl the toes into warmth. Something to knock the senses into supreme overload. I made today's photo while walking alone along the Zattere, a long, waterfront promenade in the Dorsoduro District of Venice. The sun had just risen, the boat traffic already alert and alive.
Any new morning is magical no matter where I am as long as I am alone with my camera. It is then that I find the most magical of images, when my senses are keen with possibility. No matter where we are, there is a new morning just around the corner, less than a day away. As the days get shorter I think of the longer nights and most precious mornings that fall and winter bring.