Rise: Soft palettes from the day’s edge, and musings on forward progress from the present moment
“Shift Change” - Sunrise and moonset at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley.
Shot on 135 format Portra 160 with the trusty Nikon FM2n
Inspired by a 2023 ViewSonic ColorPro photo competition prompt: RISE. “Shift Change” was submitted along with the following essay.
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Abstract: Rising is an endless transition. Just as this frame captures the enchanting beauty of a sunrise and a moonset, so the present moment in which we each rise illuminates the beauty in our interwoven pasts and futures. “Shift Change” is a set of analog frames captured on film and stitched digitally into a single, larger panorama. Like most of my work at the intersection of film and digital workflows, this frame marks the rise of an emergent, hybrid process that aims to incorporate the best of two distinct, yet fundamentally interconnected, worlds. Likewise, the captured image incorporates the blending of elements from night and day.
The sun rises. The full moon sets. Day from night, light from dark.
The rising sun brings with it a new dawn. New light, softly illuminating the landscape before me, paints the sky with its gentle, pastel palette. These soft hues pulls me out of the darkness of night. They direct my gaze to the future. The nascent light teases me with promises of deep shadows, sharp contrasts, and vibrant colors of daylight to come.
The sunrise, as with all forms of rising, is merely a transition. In this case, a transition connecting the ephemeral states of night and day. This night, the recent past, is so easily forgotten, as it is washed out by the sun’s blinding promises of the future. But without night, there is no day. Without past, no future. So as I look out towards the light of the new day, I cannot forget the night that led me here. The moon shall set, but it’s light still guided me to this point.
To rise is indeed to look eagerly to the future. To build up and ultimately relinquish control to the inertia of forward momentum. To crawl, walk, run into the welcoming embrace of progress! But importantly, to rise is to do so without forgetting the past. We must bundle up what is to come and what has already been, seeing them both for what they truly are: just memories and dreams in the only time we truly have: the present.
As we rise, we embrace this frantic, unstoppable unfolding of the current moment. We trust in how we have set up the present moment. And as present melts into the past, it also forges our future.
Our past is the unassuming giant on whose shoulders the present crouches, ready to leap into the future. Our pasts, without fail, lead reliably to the present, and our futures reliably become the past. Through it all, the giant grows. And as it grows, we see further and further ahead, into the coming times, to where we wish to leap.
Each stage, past, present, and future, informs and is informed by the others. By defining the boundaries of day, the sun also marks the edges of night. And though the moon illuminates our path through the night, its glow is just a reflection of the sun’s light. This fleeting moment captured on film encompasses both an end and a beginning. We simply traverse the interconnected cycle of time. And, like this sunrise, all of it collapses down into one single moment. And that moment is now.
So seize this moment. And the next. And the next. See the past through to its ever-receding end. Fall repeatedly into the present moments that await. Ride the unstoppable trajectory of now. In our eternal sunrise, this burgeoning moment is the only inevitability. There is nothing else.
So Rise.
-v
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“shift change” full panorama: