It All Comes Together

I really can't believe it's over.

One year ago, I decided that every time I crossed the Champlain Bridge, whether I was going to work, going for a ride in Gatineau Park, or heading home, whether I was in the car or on my bike, I would stop at the same spot on Bate Island and take a snapshot of the same view.

I would always use my 50mm lens, always shoot at 100 ISO (almost always: sometimes, I forgot to reset my camera from a previous shoot). Rain or shine, hot days or downright frigid, I would take that shot.

I didn't cross that bridge every day. Some days, I worked from home or was sick. I rarely crossed the bridge on weekends. And then there were vacation days, when I was nowhere near the city, let alone the Ottawa River.

I captured 296 images over the course of my Bate Island Project. Some are good, many are bad. A few look a lot alike. But it's interesting to see how the lighting changes, how the river can be choppy or calm, how the bush fills out, changes colour, and thins again. The snow starts and ends the project, people unwittingly get in the shot.

And I have now taken those images and compiled them into a short video. Not all of the images from the project are in the video: I removed some shots that were taken with low speeds and shakey hands, or those that were so similar that it was hard to tell one from the other. I added music, and the result is one year in two minutes and nineteen seconds.

Enjoy.