The eye-grabbing photographs of sunrise on Brian Jackson’s Instagram account are as dependable as the sun coming up. Jackson, 53, has been sharing the radiant colors of daybreak with his 900-plus followers almost every day since spring of 2017.
Ironically, it was the sun almost setting on his life the year prior that inspired his photographic endeavors.
In 2016 a health scare landed him in the hospital where doctors discovered that just 10 percent of his heart was functioning. They were stunned he was even alive.
The virus that the doctors believe attacked his heart left him with a damaged valve and an arduous year-and-a-half recovery.
“When it first started, I was so weak I couldn’t squeeze garden shears,” he said.
To regain his strength, Jackson, who works as a financial advisor, started walking before going to the office. As he headed out every morning from his home on Beck Avenue toward Rye Town Park, he was struck by the vibrant oranges and reds of the sunrise stretching across the sky above Long Island Sound.
“Every time I came around the corner I was like, these sunrises are freaking beautiful, this is awesome,” said Jackson.
He started to take his phone so he could capture them digitally and felt driven to share what he was witnessing every morning on Instagram so others could enjoy it too.
“I know most people aren’t up at that hour,” he said, “And they don’t know what they’re missing.”
Eventually he switched out his phone camera for a still camera with interchangeable zoom and wide-angle lenses.
While Jackson doesn’t have formal training in photography, he became familiar with the medium as a teen when he worked part-time as a film developer at a photo lab at the Galleria Mall.
He credits the past eight years of nearly daily shooting with honing his eye and technique.
“It’s the exact same environment every day, besides the weather pattern changing, so how do you make it look different?” he said. “That’s kind of where I started getting into the creativity of how I take some of my shots.”
His Instagram abounds with striking photos of the sunrise taken from his unique perspective. In some, the sun is the star of the show as it breaks through the horizon, turning the sky and the Long Island Sound technicolor. In others, its vibrant swath of colors provides a backdrop to everyday objects like a lost glove or beach chair.
His photographic canvas comprises the shoreline beginning at Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary to the wall at the end of Dearborn Avenue.
Day after day, month after month, season after season, he watches the sun travel its path across the horizon, rising at different points depending on the time of year. He’s come to know the sun’s journey so well that he can predict exactly where it will emerge even before it rises.
Except for rainy days when he doesn’t shoot, what he decides to focus on depends on what the dawn brings. “I first get that general 10,000-foot view of what the clouds look like, is it bad weather?” he said. “And the time of year makes a big difference.”
Eight years into it, the colors still slay him. “Even at 5:30 in the morning, when there’s no clouds in the sky, even if it’s still dark, there’s that faint color band on the horizon, it just starts to expand and expand,” he said. “Then by the time I get all the way down to the end of the pier, it’s a good 20 minutes, the development over that period can be staggering.”
In response to requests from Instagram followers, Jackson compiled 12 of his photos into a 2025 calendar that he sells on Etsy. While he’s open to selling prints of his work, he doesn’t feel compelled to turn his passion into a profession.
“This is not the reason I’m doing it,” he said.
Originally from Hastings, he’s lived in Rye since 1991 with his wife Marilyn, a lifelong resident, and their two college-age daughters.
In addition to celebrating and sharing the natural beauty of Rye photographically, Jackson has lent his support to the community as past president of the Rye City Lion’s Club and currently as president of the Rye Chamber of Commerce.
Jackson admits there have been times when photography feels like an obligation instead of a labor of love. When that happens, he takes a month off to recharge.
During one of those breaks he got a message from a follower asking if he was okay. It turned out that the follower, whose wife had died from cancer two years before, had been sharing Jackson’s sunrises with his Gilda’s Club support group. He told Jackson that his photos were an inspiration to them.
That was all he needed to recharge “big time.”
“That right there is what keeps me going,” he said. “It started about my recovery, and somewhere along the line it was somebody else’s recovery.”
For many, the sunrise symbolizes a chance to begin again. No matter what happened the day before, the sun will rise in the morning. It’s a reminder that Jackson has taken to heart and shares with his followers every day.
“Every single day is an absolute gift,” said Jackson. “You have to cherish them all.”
Brian Jackson’s photography can be found on Instagram @Brijack10580.
