Nine Years, One Sunrise Composition: A New Year’s Day Photo Project

Every January 1st for the past nine years, I’ve stood in the same place and photographed the same sunrise on Lake Superior. What began as a single image has turned into a ritual that now quietly frames my year.

On January 1st, 2018, I got up a little late and decided to shoot sunrise about 15 minutes from my house at Artist’s Point in Grand Marais, Minnesota. I messed around with a few different compositions and settled on a vertical shot of a small crack in the basalt that led directly to the sunrise. I made a bunch of frames, went home, picked my favorite, posted it, and didn’t think much more about it.

On January 1st, 2019, I got up a little late again and went back to Artist’s Point. I tried something different, decided it wasn’t working, and ended up shooting the same spot I had the year before. Because why not.

On January 1st, 2020, I figured I might as well just shoot the same spot again. I set up the composition, kicked back, and watched the sun rise.

By the next year, I realized I probably had a project. I went back. I got skunked for sunrise, but now I was four years into it.

Between then and now, I’ve been getting up early and going to the same spot, trying to arrive before anyone can stand in my way. It’s been cold and a little unmotivating to stand in the dark for an hour before sunrise, but I’ve kept at it.

I’ve kept at it because it’s a project and it’s what you do for projects. Even when you feel like sleeping in or leaving the county to visit family, there’s this project that must be finished. So, every morning on the first of the year, I return to the same spot and take the same photo.

I’m now nine years into it.

Along the way, another artist showed up. He wets sheets of plastic and freezes them so they stand upright, and a travel writer has started showing up too. I only see her once a year, except on social media, so it’s always fun to say hi.

It’s nearly a decade-long project, and I have nine photos to show for it. That feels like so few photos. But at the same time, it feels like a very long time to take the same photograph. There’s something about the repetition of it, and the nice comfort of not having to think about what I’m going to shoot on the first of the year, that makes this project feel nice. It’s now like a ritual that I return to each year. I wake up, I drive to town, I walk to the point, I stand there for an hour, I say hi to my sunrise friend, I take a photo, and I head home.

It’s like daily life, but extended to a year, and it repeats like the sunrise every day and the winter every year and even though it starts my year it completes it, too.

Until next time

I don’t have anything to plug this week, so I’ll finish with my normal, I hope that you enjoyed this essay, and I’ll see you again in two weeks.