The Daily Norm Photo of the Week: Sunrise above the Sleepers

Waking up on a weekday in order to go to work is simply dismal at this time of the year. As the season descends into autumn and then winter, and the days get shorter and shorter as they go on, the forceful ringing of an alarm clock before the skies are yet light seems like the most unnatural and cruel start to a day imaginable. Why can’t humans be as sensible as animals, curling up in their warm beds until at least the sun is out, and the start of our day coincides with the awakening of nature around us? Better still, can’t we just hibernate now until the cold dark times of winter are over? Nonetheless, despite this gloom, if you’re lucky with timing, there is one thing about the autumn that makes waking up before sunrise a real treat for the eyes – the skies. Just as the sun is about to rise (and when, of course, the sky is clear of clouds – not exactly easy in England) autumn’s gift is a sunrise so visually enriching that it could be mistaken for a neon light show out of an 80s roller disco. Shot through the sky, stripes of richly fluorescent orange slice through a peachy soft sky, while above, the fading exit of the night sky bleeds from dark blue, to lightening blue, through to a subtle shade of fragrant purple.

This week’s Daily Norm Photo of the Week shows one such sunrise, when the sun has just burst above the horizon and transformed the skies around it into a cocktail of colour explosions. I love how the urban silhouette in front of it responds with such fervour in a sharp relief of black, while reminding us that at this time of the sun’s early entrance, beneath the eaves and roofs of these houses, workers remain snuggled up in bed, fighting the eager alarm clock whose shrill warning reminds the snoozing sleeper that it is time to face the cold, long, busy day ahead.