Sunrises and sunset are magical: warm hues of pinks, oranges, reds wash the sky and paint the clouds at the start and end of each day for a good thirty minutes to hour or more, depending on your latitude. Sometimes the show is watery or pastel, sometimes the colours are vibrant. Sometimes we miss it for heavy cloud cover. Still, we know it’s there two times a day. No wonder it’s called “magic hour.”
With the winter days growing shorter in the northern hemisphere, another season of magic is upon us – the festival season – and so the morning of December 25 has to be the most magical sunrise of the year. Nothing else could top that sunrise, could it?
Well… I was working with the IMAX space team and there was a day we brought some of the first 70mm footage back to Earth, including a sunrise in space. How cool could that be?!
Since we were based in Ontario, about 5 of us gathered at the IMAX theatre at Ontario Place for the first -look watch of the rushes. I couldn’t be more excited and felt humbly privileged to be there. I wondered what a sunrise in space would look like.
The frame started as pitch black. No image at all. With no ambient light in space, that made sense. And then…
It was over!
Yup. In four seconds, the frame went from full-frame black to everything brightly lit. Forget Earth latitude differences to the length of magic hour, there are no clouds in space and no atmosphere, so there’s nothing for sunrise to paint or to linger on. How disappointing, but also… of course! Like, duh!
And because of the orbit of the shuttle around the world, the astronauts would see one of these abrupt sunrises or sets every 90 minutes.
Wow. It makes you think. That’s a difference perspective to what we see here on the ground.
Admittedly, because of that “light-switch” sunrise, I probably appreciate the atmospheric art of magic hour on Earth more so now than ever, making magic hour even more special.
I hope you take time to enjoy the next one near you.
Cheers, a good shoot & magical season to you,
Deb
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