In Search of Beautiful Things (and Inspiration): November 2024
In Search of Beautiful Things (and Inspiration): November 2024
30 moments of everyday beauty - photographed by 5AM StoryTalk's readers and curated by me - to help inspire you on your personal and creative journeys
“In Search of Beautiful Things (and Creative Inspiration)” is a monthly photograph series by the readers of 5AM StoryTalk and curated by me. It began as a personal essay this past summer, in which I detailed a low point in my personal and creative life, post-international move to London, and how a daily ritual to look for and photograph one beautiful thing helped me recover some stability and creative energy in my life. You can read this essay here. The response to it was tremendous, leading me to call for readers to share their own moments of beauty on Notes. Eventually, it made sense to take all those moments and assemble them into…something more.
This brings me to November’s edition of “In Search of Beautiful Things (and Creative Inspiration)”. I tried to identify a theme the submitted images most explored, and what I came up with is “Transitions”. October, the month these pics were selected from, is a transitional period, after all; autumn to winter in the Northern Hemisphere and spring to summer in the Southern. The light changes, the color changes, and, in this case, even the night sky changes in extraordinary ways. It’s a period of becoming, you might even say. Not everything I selected fits in this box — it’s very important to me to also keep this series as geographically and culturally diverse as possible — but this slight thematic bumpiness might be necessary sometimes.
Hopefully, this series inspires you if you’re feeling creatively — or even personally — lost and maybe even encourages you to look for more beauty in your own life. But as important as this is, I also hope we can build a community of seekers together here around this philosophy. Because this project will only work as long as you all want it to.
Now, please, enjoy these 30 moments of everyday beauty to get you through the next month — and thank you to those who shared them with us (I wish I could’ve included every contribution). These photographs come from four continents and ten countries.
DAY 1
By
Brisbane, Queensland - Australia
On my morning walk through West End in Brisbane.
DAY 2
By Pam Drake
Atlanta, Georgia - United States
Serve Your Neighbor, from Atlanta’s West End of town. It’s a nice reminder of how important community is, now more than ever. This was in a renovated complex of old buildings filled with meandering outdoor areas, restaurants and retail, located at Lee and White streets.
DAY 3
By
Northumberland, England - United Kingdom
My partner and our dog at Alnmouth Beach. Just watching them wander into the water together, completely in the moment, made my heart sing.
DAY 4
By
Paradise, Michigan - United States
Lower Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
DAY 5
By
Galley - Sri Lanka
Paradise lost.
DAY 6
By
Antella, Florence - Italy
DAY 7
By
Palm Springs, California - United States
The composition of these boulders have me in awe. This was taken on a hike in Indian Canyons. The land is owned by the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians.
DAY 8
By
Karnataka - India
A stream by the road side in the Western Ghats.
DAY 9
By
RobertsLos Angeles, California - United States
Face in a tree on my daily walk with my dog.
DAY 10
By
Niterói, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Along Avineda Almeda heading toward the Niteroi Bridge going into Rio.
DAY 11
By
Ontonagon County, Michigan - United States
Paths diverging in early October at Lake of the Clouds in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
DAY 12
By
Ilkley, West Yorkshire — United Kingdom
Finally, after a week of seemingly relentless rain and grey skies, we had a day of gorgeous autumnal sunshine – which produced the most wonderful shadows (and which warranted dusting off my autumnal walking boots).
DAY 13
By
Long Island, New York - United States
My son walking to the car for fall baseball. I want to freeze time right here. I want to grab him and say hey, let’s just stand here for a minute and appreciate this. But I don’t. Because when you’re a kid that shit is weird. So I watched him walk and snapped a photo and that’s all I have.
DAY 14
By
Superior, Wisconsin — United States
An albino squirrel.
DAY 15
By
Lake Tahoe, California - United States
This one from the Sierra Nevada Mountains above Lake Tahoe. I’ve always had a thing for pinecones.
DAY 16
By
Astoria, New York - United States
DAY 17
By
Sydney, New South Wales - Australia
A humpback whale breaching just outside Sydney Harbor. The humpbacks are on their return journey to Antarctic waters after their migration north earlier in the year.
DAY 18
By Alex Kustanovich (
)New York City, New York - United States
The photo was taken at West 4th Street station in NYC. The approaching train is a Coney Island bound D train.
DAY 19
By Kim Hayes (
)Somewhere over the United States
Taken last week, flying from Chicago to New Orleans.
DAY 20
By
Seattle, Washington - United STates
A photo of a music booklet I handmade along with burnt cds, and then mailed in the post to my sister as a way to say “hi, I miss you” while she lived far away in France.
DAY 21
By John Cline (
)Ohio - United States
This year’s last haul of peppers.
DAY 22
By
Singapore
Sunday night jazz improv at Arab Street. Miles will have nodded, maybe approvingly…
DAY 23
By
Los Angeles, California - United States
Dodger Stadium, NLCS Game 1 vs The Mets. October Baseball. Absolute peak smog sunset, at least 3 runs on the board already and I found myself in a little game of musical chairs due to a ticket purchase snafu. While it was a downside that I couldn’t sit next to one of my funniest friends as his “micro dose” of mushrooms came on and he enjoyed the birthday gift we had given him, the upside was a seat alone in a sea of baseball fans, with just my quiet thoughts in a loud stadium.
DAY 24
By
Seabrook, Washington - United States
Girls on the Beach.
DAY 25
By Sheila W. (
)Victoria, British Columbia - Canada
The silhouetted spire of the Belfry Theatre in the Fernwood neighborhood of Victoria, BC.
DAY 26
By Matt Carlosn (
)Gold Beach, Oregon - United States
DAY 27
By
Sorrento, Campania - Italy
Sailboat moored off Sorrento Harbour. The glow in the foreground is from the lights of Sorrento behind me. Steep steps join the harbour to the rest of the town, which sits at the top of the cliffs.
DAY 28
By
Tromsø — Norway
This is my first time seeing the northern lights. I thought, how could it be so special; isn’t it so touristy now, so overdone? Wrong. It absolutely blew my mind. This is the magnetic field of our planet in action, and it’s beautiful.
DAY 29
By
Bridgewater, South Australia - Australia
Aurora australis.
DAY 30
By Kevin P. Jenssen (
)Hermon, Maine - United States
Here’s what the northern lights looked like from my place the other night. Ok, it was taken by my husband on a regular iPhone, over the waters of Hermon Pond from our back porch. Being mostly blind, I couldn’t see it until he took the picture, it’s a regular part of our day for him to take pictures of our woods and water, then I blow them up on my tablet and use that and a magnifier to see.
If you would like to submit a recent photograph of everyday beauty from your life, to be considered for next month’s installment of this series, look for an upcoming Notes call to action from me or email 5AMStoryTalk@gmail.com. Please include:
A hi-res photograph
Your first and last name
The location, even if it’s just a town or county or the name of a mountain range
Any note you would like to include to provide context (these are optional)
The rights to these photos will remain yours, of course, but submitting them should be understood as permission to publish them.
Oh, and spread the word if you can by sharing this article. I will never paywall this series, so helping to signal boost this just makes the experience richer for all of us who choose to become involved.
I look forward to continuing this exploration of moments of everyday beauty with you here at 5AM StoryTalk!
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If you enjoyed this particular article, these other three might also prove of interest to you:
So good! I love seeing the collaborative expression of beauty, formed by fellow creators who share a hope to seek out beauty in the world, in spite of everything. The northern (& southern) lights, the sea, the sky, the whale; these moments of beauty are heartwarming. I love this concept of interweaving small moments of beauty into a bigger picture, a shared creative vision of seeking beauty and meaning. As you wrote: “it made sense to take all those moments and assemble them into…something more.” Yes! Thank you for integrating my picture of art into the collective tapestry of beautiful things. I adore each photo, how each one enhances and strengthens the larger picture of seeing what is good, true, and beautiful. I’m sharing this newsletter with everyone I know! This ongoing project you’ve created helps to make the world a better, happier, more meaningful place.
So honoured to be part of this, thanks, Cole