First light on the Aletsch

The last cable car up the Jungfrau does not run at four in the morning. That is the first thing you learn when you decide to photograph the Aletsch at sunrise, and the second is that the walk up is worth every cold minute.

For twenty minutes there was nothing to shoot. The glacier was a grey suggestion, the sky a flat sheet, and my hands were already regretting the thin gloves. Then the first light came over the ridge, not all at once but in a slow wash, and the ice went from lead to bronze to a pale, impossible gold.

I made maybe six frames I care about, out of a few hundred. That is a good morning. The rest are the price of being there, ready, when the light finally decides to arrive.