A Turn in the Tide

Because we are under strict lockdown in Ontario, and because I want to do my part to limit my travel to essential-errands only (cycling outdoors is essential as exercise and for my mental health). As a result, I've resisted the urge to pick up my camera and go to places outside of my neighbourhood.

And as a further result, I'm not taking many photos these days.

As my recent series of blog posts have shown, I've turned to old photos and slides to try to virtually travel back in time. But I've also looked at other slides that I had taken over the years before digital photography, running them through my photo-editing software to enhance the image or sharpen them up.

Some, I've made into new photos, altering the time of day in which they were shot.

If the pandemic doesn't get under control soon, I may have to include these rebooted photos in my annual year-end post of my favourite photos of the year.

Lately, I've started looking at the east-coast trip that DW and I took in the summer of 1996. In that year, we took our old 1980 Datsun 200SX out to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The trip centred around our second wedding anniversary, and we stayed at various B&Bs and camped at various national parks.

For a couple of nights, we stayed at Fundy National Park, in the south of New Brunswick. We set up our tent at a camp site that was near to the mouth of the Upper Salmon River, where it opened into the Bay of Fundy, and on the outskirts of the town of Alma. Essentially, we were along the shore of the Bay of Fundy, between Saint John and the Hopewell Rocks.

At night, from our tent, we could see the lights by the bridge that connected Fundy Park to the town: that's how close we were.

(Side note: at the time, there was a small restaurant, very close to the Alma side of the bridge, that made the best seafood chowder I have ever eaten.)

Because the Upper Salmon River was subjected to the same rising and falling tides as the Bay of Fundy, there would be times where the tide filled the river and there were times when the river looked like a dried up marsh. I wanted to capture the differences in the scene, so I tried to pick the same place in which to stand between tide in and tide out.

I have since augmented these slide photos with Luminar AI. Can you tell which one looks the closest to the original?

Find out tommorow, for Photo Friday.

Happy Thursday!