Pavilion, New York, Panorama, 2012
I realize this photo may be a little tough to see. It’s quite
wide. Click on it and you should get a larger image.
This photo reminds me why early mornings are so often wasted on
sleep. I can’t claim to be all high and mighty about this. For the last six
months my body clock has favored late nights over early mornings. I was up early
enough to observe this scene only because I wanted to get a jump on a twelve-hour
drive.
It was dark when I left the western suburbs of Buffalo, New York.
By the time I passed through the little hamlet of Pavilion, the sun was peeking
over the horizon in earnest. Pavilion, by the way, is not far from the town of
LeRoy, New York, which the eminent artist Walt Taylor claims as his birthplace.
I cannot verify this. There were no historic markers or roadside rest stops
claiming Taylor as one of LeRoy’s own.
Normally I’d be trying to make time on the road. But as the
sun peeked over the hills I couldn’t help but notice the shadows in the center
of this photo. I was so distracted thinking about those shadows that I was a half-mile
down the road before it occurred to me that I should go back and photograph
what I’d seen.
The thing about making such decisions that early in the
morning is that the light changes rapidly at sunrise. It only took me a few
minutes to find a place to turn around and go back to where I could park, stand
on the seat of a tractor parked on the side of the road (to get a little
elevation) and take the pictures that were stitched together to make this
panorama. But already the story of the scene was changing. The light was
becoming less golden. The clouds in the distance were passing by quickly.
You have to admit it’s a pretty gorgeous morning. This is
beautiful country. The clouds are worthy of El Greco. The shadows recall the
hill towns of Tuscany. The sounds I heard as I took these pictures were birds
singing and frogs croaking among the reeds in a pond that is just out of sight.
If I thought I’d see sights like this even one morning out of
seven, I’d get up earlier.
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