No Expectations

Photo of the Day - October 16, 2008

by Kip Cole on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 04:08 UTC

Girl With Umbrella on Chennai Beach

The beach at Chennai is huge. It’s very long and very wide. And like any public space in India it’s home to a wide variety of activities, especially in the relative cool of the morning. In December 2004 I had one morning free to wander the beach, talk to some of the local fishermen, join in some beach cricket and marvel at the on-beach acrobatics class. None of us knew that in two weeks the largest tsunami in a century would blast the life from the beach.

It’s easy when travelling for business purposes to make excuses for not getting up early enough to make images. Not only is the light good just around dawn, but in most of Asia people’s activities follow the same rhythm. They get up early before the sun to do their outdoor activities before the heat of the day. Avoid the direct sun during the day if possible and then back out on the streets as the sun goes down.

Many times I’ve heard visitors to southeast Asia and the Asian sub-continent that there’s never anyone doing anything during the day. If only they’d hit the streets around 5:30am they’d see all manner of activities. Thai Chi, morning markets, mahjong, beach cricket or football. By 7:30am it begins to quieten again as the intensity of the sun beats down.

If I’d slept in on this day in December 2004 I would have missed not only the amazing variety of activities on the beach that morning. I would have missed a part of Chennai life and never had a memory of the beach that would disappear two weeks later.

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