Is This Aesthetic?

I had a chat with some teens last month about their social media use; specifically, we were discussing what they post on Instagram and why this photo and not that one.

The answer? Aesthetics. Ok, so what’s aesthetics? How do you decide what’s aesthetics? The 13 year old stared at me and said, “It’s what will make me happy if look at it again.”

Buoyed by the memory of that conversation, I present this photo:

taken from my plane seat over Dubai.

Is it beautiful? Not particularly. I didn’t plan it or compose it or do whatever it is that photographers do. This is just a snapshot taken on a 3 year old cranky phone through a window.

Is it meaningful? I’m in a man made machine, in a privileged window seat up in the air watching a sunrise whose colours and transformations no man could make more beautiful. So, yes.

Is it aesthetic? Even with the blob of engine in the corner? I think the engine provides context. So, to me, yes.

And it makes me happy to look at it because a sunrise is a new beginning.