We regularly feature photo submissions from our Images of Edina photo contest in the pages of Edina Magazine and online. This month, we asked Burton Hanson to tell us about his photograph titled “Sunrise on Season of Change at 50th and France.”
What’s your favorite thing about this image?
Maybe that it turned out better than I expected since I had to act quickly and didn’t have time to carefully crop with the camera … I believe I lucked out additionally in that the clouds were not only of a lovely sunrise tint but in that they were narrow and horizontal, which seems to contribute to the horizontal forward movement provided by the forward left-to-right descent of the plane, and the implied hopeful progress theme of the pic.
What inspired the shot?
On previous walks I had noticed the passenger jets on their typical west-to-east descending flight pattern above and north of the construction site of Nolan Mains. I resolved to keep my eyes open for a sunrise shot of a descending plane if the overnight position of the construction crane happened to be in a favorable position and if everything else, including the cloud pattern and lovely early light, materialized. The picture wouldn’t have worked as well as I think it does without the visually contrasting sense of left-to-right or forward motion provided by the smoothly descending plane.
Do you typically take photos like this or is this out of the norm for you?
It’s hard to say because even pics I take over time of the same subjects like [Landmark’s Edina Cinema] are often unique and fresh to me.
What prompted you to submit your photo to Images of Edina?
I have been regularly submitting to the contest since 2015. My interest in photography is much longer. I got my first camera as a birthday gift in 1956.
