SHOT OF THE DAY - THE INCOMPARABLE JOY AND HEARTBREAK OF SUNRISE

Why do it? It's early early. You're still waking up. It's dark and cold when you set out, because you need to be there ahead of the sun actually rising. Sometimes the good stuff happens twenty minutes beforehand. Sometimes, an hour after. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it's spectacular, sometimes a big disappointment. Sometimes the sun has changed where it rises and omitted to tell you. Sometimes you can't park, you forget your SD cards, or you're just plain knackered.

So those are the big hurdles. You can't make money from it. You get more peer approval prancing around like a fool or sharing pictures of your lunch. Sometimes you overcook your photos, sometimes you abandon them. Sometimes you have to go desperately seeking coffee, food, a toilet. And let's not even get started on the wildly inaccurate predictions of weather forecasts.

And sometimes, it is just sublime.

Those of us who do this are not pessimists. You can't be. If we grumble it's because we are at times thwarted optimists. You simply wouldnt leave the house if you didn't think there was a chance of something magical happening.

This is why you stick your head out the front door at 5.30 in the morning (far more efficient than consulting the aforementioned forecast) and make plans you already know may have to change, compromise, be abandoned. It's a great life lesson and one that bears repeating. And sure, the best bit may well not be the sunrise itself, as I found on this occasion.

Because it is not only a test of hopefulness and stamina, but way to quite literally commune with nature, to lose yourself in the awe that only an early morning sky, in it's unpredictable way, can inspire.