Out Before Dawn

(By the way, this is the 3,000th post for The Brown Knowser. Thought you might like to know.)

A week ago, I did something that I haven't done in a very long time: I woke up, before sunrise, for the sole purpose of taking photographs.

I'm not a morning person but I'll get up early if I'm motivated. Like, when I used to work at the office and wanted to arrive between 6:30 and 7, before most of my colleagues arrived. I'd get a lot of work done before any distractions got my attention, and I'd be able to leave work earlier in the afternoon, giving myself the rest of the day to enjoy.

I'll get up early to go kayaking, if our destination is far. It's good to beat the rush and I find the lighting better.

I'll get up early to catch a flight. Not that I sleep well leading up to that flight. I get anxious toward departure time and I don't calm down until I'm at the gate, ready to board.

I'd like to think that I can get up early just to take a photo, but more times than not, I'll sacrifice a good shot for another hour of sleep.

But last Friday, I made an exception. Last week, I was on a staycation, where I got some writing done (including this post), got some chores done and some errands run, worked on videos, and relaxed. I wanted to use one of those mornings to get up early and capture some photos, and when I learned that we would have fog patches that would burn off in the morning, I thought that this would be a good time to rise early.

My destination was set the night before: Hog's Back. It's one of my favourite places to take photos and I knew that if there was going to be fog patches, they'd be there.

When I pulled into the parking lot, there were only a couple of cars already there. No doubt, there'd be other photographers with the same idea, but when I got to the falls, there was no one there. I had the lookout to myself.

But as I started setting up my tripod, I saw a young, pretty woman in a hijab come along the path towards where I was setting up.

"Good morning," I said as she passed by.

"Good morning," she echoed. "Do you think you'll get the sun over the falls?"

"Not over the falls," I said, "but I'm hoping for a bit of colourful light."

"Good luck," she said, and kept walking.

"Have a great day," was my response.

She didn't stop at the lookout but continued along the path as it ran downstream, toward Vincent Massey Park.

And I thought something that I immediately checked myself and wondered if I should even be thinking such a thing. Here was a young woman, on her own, in a relatively empty park, before the sun was up. Was she safe?

I also thought that because she was wearing a hijab, would she be susceptible to criticism or even an attack?

And then I thought, am I being somehow racist and sexist for thinking these thoughts? What makes me think that she can't take care of herself?

I'm a dad of two young women and I worry about them all the time, particularly Kid 2, who lives in Toronto and works late hours. I don't have the luxury of seeing that she gets home safely.

And that's what I wanted for this young woman in Hog's Back Park. I just wanted her to be safe and get to wherever she was going, just as I want for my own kids.

And while I captured photos of the falls, I kept my ears alert to any sounds that would break the peace of the morning.

Of course, when I finished taking photos at this lookout, I moved to other spots where all I could hear were the cars passing over the dam and the crashing water. I saw more people and was surprised that they were all on their own, much like me.

Ottawa's a safe place, I told myself. Sure, it's not perfect and you do have to be aware of your surroundings, but you can almost always expect to get from point A to point B without anything bad happening.

As I made my way back to my car, I encountered another woman, a bit younger than me, who was walking her dog. "Did you get your shots?" she asked.

"I hope so," I replied.

She scooted across the road that leads into the park and into a field that was wet with dew, where the sun was casting its warm rays through the trees. In an instant, I took one last shot.

It reminds me that we can all come out before dawn.

Happy Friday!