«Aujourd’hui j’ai permis au soleil de se lever plus tôt que moi» (today I allowed the sun to get up earlier than me), once said Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.
It may or may not be the case in Paris, yet in Japan, you can hardly ever get up early enough to see sunrise. The day is different, the sun rises extremely early and if you get up by 6am, it is already high up in the sky as if it was noon.
Early morning view, at first, each time you think you have overslept…
I have always wanted to take photos of a sunrise, but since in Japan, I have postponed this idea for some (possibly, quite distant) future.
Likewise, evening and night fall very early. If in Europe summer is the season of late light evenings and short nights, here midsummer’s night does not mean much, all nights are the same and by 7pm it is completely dark no matter the season.
Long summer evening somewhere in Paris
In Japan, it is completely dark by 7pm, no matter the season.
So, if inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and the Little Prince you would like to watch 43 sunsets, better go to Paris. In Japan I found myself several times literally running to some open spot to take a photo as 10-15 minutes it would be too late.
Chasing the sun in Japan
10-15 minutes and it is over…
« Et j’aime la nuit écouter les étoiles. C’est comme cinq cents millions de grelots… »(And at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells…). This one still remains to be tested in Japan…