This week I tried to focus on something in photography called the Blue Hour. It’s a specific window of time that happens half hour before the sun breaks the horizon and a half hour after. In my opinion it’s really only accurate in the 10 minutes before the sunrises and the 10 minutes that follow. As it’s winter, sunrise was around 7:48ish this week and it was a challenge within my work schedule to make it work. It was going great until Thursday.

Thursday’s Story: 11/365
We had a situation today. “Situation normal, all messed up.” I wanted to do the whole week in the “blue hour” and so I race around in the morning to get the photo and then race to school for 0 hour.
The blue hour is best in the 10 minutes before and after the sun breaks the horizon.
Today’s journey was to BELWIN Conservatory. Notice how it’s in all caps. My phone does that now because I tried to get Siri to “text kate” and tell her where I was. “BELWIN Siri, B E L W I N. Text KATE.”
It’s not populated. It’s remote. It’s dark and I’m alone with my pepper spray and a camera. I’m always positive I will be kidnapped at any moment. Kate tracks me virtually so she can recover my body, obviously.
Anyway, I’m running through the thicket at BELWIN. And I’m waiting for the light and I check behind me and I see a car pull into to the entrance real slow and just idle. Looks like a big van. We all think the same thing when we see a van… shoot. Ok gotta get the shot. Gotta get the heck outta here. It’s not working. The blue hour is not bluing. It’s only gray and the shots are terrible.
I’m bounding through the weeds and stumbling around in the dim light and snag my ankle, drop my glove, and trip. Shoot, number 2. I’m about to give up anyway, when I hear a strange muffled growl/sigh/gasp in the thicket.
NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. That’s it. I’m done. You win BELWIN. I try to tell Siri to “text Kate” again because my fingers are numb and now I’m running because the van is a van.
“HEY SIRI CALL KATE” “calling Kate…” Kate picks up right away and I give her the run down. “RUN. Get to your car!”
I’m running. I’m running and it’s freezing and my ankle hurts and I can’t hold the phone and the camera and the pepper spray and I slide the final two feet to my car, whip the door open, toss the stuff on the seat. “I’m in! Doors locked! Van still here.”
“Claire get out of there!”
“I am, I’m peeling out!”
Funnily enough, after my first two classes of the day I saw out the window a blue sky. It’s been 11 days since we’ve seen the sun here. Go figure.

Friday was freezing. I thought my fingers would never recover and be forever stuck in the camera grip I had to get these images. It only got colder, so Saturday & Sunday were spent inside with some good ol’ self portraits.