Frozen sunrise

The first mornings of January belong to a different world. This photo was made at sunrise on January 2, 2026, in the fields of Les Mesnuls in the Yvelines: a frost-locked landscape where every blade of grass had been stilled by the cold, and a single bare tree stood alone in the middle of an open meadow, waiting for the sun. When it came, it came with force: a full sunstar blazing just behind the silhouette, rays fanning outward through a restless sky of gold and grey. The tree asks for nothing. It simply stands rooted, leafless, indifferent to the cold while the light breaks open the horizon around it. The frosted foreground grounds the image in the physical reality of the season: the crunch underfoot, the breath visible in the air, the particular stillness of a winter field at dawn.Some images are about grandeur. This one is about endurance and the extraordinary light that rewards those who go out into the cold.