Then And Now

Early Friday Morning, on Canada Day, I drove my parents to the airport, where they were flying to my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting a baby this week. Their flight left Ottawa for Phoenix at 6 A.M., which meant that I needed to get them to the airport by 4. Like the good son that I am, I didn't mind.
 
With traffic that light at that early hour, I managed to drop them off at 3:45, just before the early light of dawn broke. And with them safely delivered, and me wide awake, I decided to take advantage of my free time and take some photographs.

In May of 1989, just a couple of months after Lori and I started dating, I also found myself wide awake at dawn, wanting to take pictures. Back then, I headed for the outskirts of town. This time, those outskirts are now very close to my current neighbourhood.

And so, not wanting to stray too far from home, I thought I'd return to where I shot those photos more than 23 years ago.

Back then, fog hung thickly in the air, and when the sun broke over the horizon it cut through that fog and cast a beautiful orange glow. On a road that was once only two lanes but is now four, this is what I shot^*:

 
I returned to the Fallowfield United Church. It stood, unchanged, still cast in the same glow of the yellow street lamp. Though I was now there a couple of hours earlier than in 1989, the lighting was somewhat similar.

Back in 1989, the silos near Valleyview Farms gave me an eery chill, and when I shot them that morning, the gathering fog completed the chilling effect. But on this morning, the silos shone, almost as though they were new. The hairs on the back of my neck didn't stand on end, as they had when I had taken those pictures 23 years ago. On this warm July morning, all I felt was the solitude, broken only ever so often by passing traffic—something that didn't happen back then.

I really enjoyed my early-morning photo shoot. As time allows this summer, I hope to take advantage of any opportunity to do more.


^* I had planned to show more photos from that '89 shoot, but my scanner no longer wants to scan slides. I found this in an archive of slides I had scanned a few years ago. I'll try to show other slides when I can solve my scanner problems.