When I Couldn't Sleep

It was going to be sunrise in about an hour and I hadn't slept all night.

I had been writing fiction, working on a story that would become part of a trilogy. My head was full of ideas and I was trying to figure out some broken ties. Though I had stopped typing—yes, I used a typewriter in 1989—my brain was still working away.

I also missed my girlfriend. We had only started dating a few months earlier but we had known each other for about a year before then. Shortly after we started our relationship, she had told me that she had a summer job, up in Northern Ontario, planting trees, and she would be away for two months.

Little did either of us know that she would later become DW.

With the story tumbling around my head and thoughts of my absent girlfriend, it was no wonder I couldn't fall asleep. And, finally noticing the time and realizing that the sun would be up soon, I decided to grab my camera, jump in my car, and drive.

I had no set destination. It wasn't uncommon for me to go for long drives in my '85 Pontiac Sunbird. I'd just get behind the wheel and go, letting each intersection randomly take me left, right, or straight on through.

In 1989, Barrhaven was considered way out in the boonies. So when I passed it and continued along Fallowfield Drive, toward vast farm fields, I was far from home. But it wasn't the furthest a random drive had taken me.

One time, I drove until I found myself along the St. Lawrence River, at the Ogdensburg bridge, and I decided to cross into the U.S.. Back then, a passport wasn't required; just a valid driver's license.

"Where are you headed?" the American border agent asked me.

"Just going for a drive."

"Just a drive?"

"Yes. I might stop and take some photos." I always had my camera bag in the back seat, just in case I saw something and wanted to capture it.

"You aren't looking to sell any camera gear, are you?" the border agent asked, looking suspiciously into the back of my car.

"Not at all. I just thought I'd drive along the south shore of the St. Lawrence, stop and take any photos along the way."

"How long do you plan to be driving?"

"Not long." It was already about 8:00 in the evening. I didn't want to be out all night.

The border agent waved me through. I got to Highway 37 and headed eastward, stopping in Waddington, New York, where I stopped to photograph an old church that was lit up in an eerie orange glow. I continued through Massena, which, at that hour, seemed closed up for the night, and crossed back into Canada at Cornwall.

Those were the easy days, when there was no questions for a 20-something out for a ride, crossing international borders. But I had an innocent face, to boot.

But on the day where I stayed up and went for a pre-dawn drive, I knew that no matter how much my Sunbird wanted to take me far away—maybe, as far as to see my girlfriend—I was going to stay relatively close to home.

I had to be at work for 9:00.

As I drove past Barrhaven, some fog was rolling in, sometimes thick enough to obscure the road ahead. Absolutely, I wasn't going to wander far in these conditions.

I made it as far as the village of Fallowfield and stopped near the united church, which, unlike the similar church in Waddington, was shrouded in darkness. Only it's outline was visible against the coming blue-hour light.

I took a few photos but felt the chill of the fog in the air, which was getting thicker as dawn drew nearer. Across the road, I captured the grain silos of Valleyview Farm. I even took some photos of my car, at the side of the road, in front of this scene.

The sun was going to be up at any moment and I had an idea for a shot I wanted to take. I climbed back into my Sunbird and raced back to Barrhaven.

In 1989, Barrhaven was relatively small. Farm fields occupied a lot of the land between Greenbank and Woodroffe, along Fallowfield Road. There was a small shopping mall near the railway crossing but not much else, once you crossed that spot. And Fallowfield Road was only a narrow, two-lane street.

I pulled to the side of the road, hopeful that my flashing taillights would alert anyone coming from behind. The fog was extremely dense, which made my photo plans perfect.

The sun had risen above the horizon and had lifted only a bit, but it was at a perfect height. I moved so that it was immediately behind the railway-crossing barrier and took my shot.

Within a minute or two, the first car of the morning made its way toward the crossing, coming from the east. Also, in the late 80s, this part of Fallowfield Road didn't see much traffic. The car had a burned-out headlight, giving it some character, so I took a wider-angled shot.

Satisfied with my work (but not knowing exactly how any shots turned out because this was before the digital age), I returned to my car and made my way homeward, stopping only once to capture another foggy-sunrise-silhouette shot. I was home before 6:30.

Plenty of time for a short nap before my alarm would sound, reminding me it was time to get ready for work.

Happy Thursday!

My Viking Roots

I only recently learned about my Scandinavian roots, with almost 10 percent of my genetic makeup representing Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. I learned this fact after a genetic test.

There's Viking blood in me.

Which makes it kind of funny that I came across a photo of me from 1989. It looks like I took it at a party (other photos corroborate my guess) and it was probably shot with my old Nikon One Touch point-and-shoot camera.

It's not a great photo, being somewhat out of focus.

DW and I were recently dating at the time but I can't remember which party we were at. We went to a lot of house parties back then. I don't recognize the ceiling or wall but it appears to be in someone's basement.

I don't remember where the helmet came from. Also, at the time, I wouldn't have known that true Viking helmets didn't have horns.

It's funny, looking at the photo now, knowing my genealogical roots. And, ugh, that hair!

Happy Thursday!

Blind Shot

We were heading north, on West Street, between the World Trade Center and the Holland Tunnel. We were in my 1985 Pontiac Sunbird, making our way home after a long weekend in New York City. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day, with not a cloud in the sky: perfect for a last look at the city that never sleeps.

Through the sunroof, the twin towers loomed large. I looked up and wanted to capture an image with my camera, but I was behind the wheel.

I was also a young and whimsical 24 year old.

DW—before she and I were married—was sitting in the seat next to me. In the back seat was my best friend, Stuart, and his girlfriend at the time. Stu was meeting DW for the first time, as she and I had only been dating for about a month. I knew Stu's girlfriend, though she made it clear that she wished she didn't know me (that's another story, which I don't care to share).

My camera was in the trunk area of the car but because it was a hatchback, it was easy for Stu to reach. And when I asked him to hand it to me, he was only too obliging (much to his girlfriend's chagrin).

My camera, a Minolta X-700, did not have auto-focusing capabilities, so I handed the camera to DW and told her to do two things: make sure that the focus ring was set to infinity and set the aperture to f/16. I always kept my camera in aperture-priority mode, so I knew that on this bright day, the shutter speed would be able to handle this setting.

While DW checked the camera, I rolled down my window (it was a crank). With everything ready, she passed me the camera, I stuck it out the window, pointed skyward, and pressed the shutter release. The whole time, I had one hand on the wheel and my eyes firmly locked on the traffic ahead.

A couple of minutes later, before we turned off West Street toward the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, I stuck my camera out the window one last time, pointing the camera behind me.

With the shots taken, I gave the camera back to Stu, who returned it to its case in the trunk. I wouldn't see the photos until I returned home and sent the 35mm film to the lab for processing.

I avoid using my camera while I drive. I'm no longer old nor quite as whimsical as I used to be. It's still distracted driving.

Be safe out there, folks. Happy Thursday!

Early Photos

I've shared a photo from this evening before.

Back in my early days of photography, I shot silhouettes sparingly. I was never crazy about capturing backlit people, their shapes appearing in black, without detail. Finding other objects—trees, buildings—meant that you had to be in the right place at the right time.

Initially, I arrived at the St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Shrine to capture the rising full moon and to overlap that shot with the church as part of the subject. My double-exposure shot didn't turn out too badly.

But as the moon was rising in the east, the sun was setting in the west, and the orange glow that lit the sky was hard to resist. And yet, from where I was standing, with the lens that was on my Minolta X-700 SLR, there was no way that I could capture the sunset and the church in the same frame.

So, as soon as I had taken my two photos of St. John's and the moon, I walked out to Heron Road and onto the bridge that spans the Rideau Canal and river. When I was far enough away, I took my shot.

On the processed slide, the orange glow of the sun was intense, with some purple-blue clouds that were low on the horizon. The Ukrainian Catholic Shrine was in perfect silhouette.

More than 30 years later, I digitized my slide and ran it through Luminar AI, looking to augment the orange sky with more clouds, but doing so only ruined the photo. I loved the rich orange hue of the original. So, to prepare this photo to share, I only removed the bits of dust that were captured during the scan, I added an additional 10 percent contrast to the image, and increased the saturation, again by 10 percent, to compensate for the loss in the scan. Finally, I cropped the image to a 16:9 ratio so that some other buildings, whose rooftops were slightly visible at the bottom, were cut out.

This photo looks close to what the slide shows when I just hold it up to ambient light, minus the cropped-out section.

When I see some of my early photos, in some ways I see that I've come a long way with my more recent shots. But when I see photos like this. I think I perfected some techniques pretty early on.

Happy Thursday!

Negative Space

In 1989, I was really getting into my stride with photography.

At 24, I was the assistant manager at a camera store and I took every opportunity to hone my photography skills. My camera was always loaded with 35mm, E-6 slide film, and wherever I went in my car, my camera bag was usually on the floor, behind the driver's seat.

When it was quiet in the camera store, I would pour over the pages of the photography books that we kept behind the display cases, often standing next to the premium SLR cameras. When the sales reps from Nikon or Minolta came to visit, they would always share great tips to get the most out of your camera. (It was through the Minolta rep that I learned the trick of how to advance the crank on my X-700 without moving the film, allowing for the possibility of multiple exposures.)

One summer evening, I drove to the Arboretum to photograph the full moon as it was rising. And while the view from the lookout toward Carleton University and the Rideau Canal is impressive, I decided that I wanted to get a bit more height and I didn't want to include Dunton Tower in my shot, so I moved over near the Heron Road Bridge and parked in the lot to the fairly new St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Shrine.

Back in 1989, this church's domed roof and towers were not yet adorned in gold, but it was still an impressive structure. From its parking lot, I had a clear view of the rising moon, which had a pinkish hue to it.

When I took a few shots, I wished that it was possible to have this Catholic shrine as part of the image, but the building was at my back when I was photographing the moon, and to move to the other side meant that I would have to wait for the moon to rise higher, when it would lose its warm glow.

I had attempted a double-exposure photograph already, with the Chateau Laurier and the moon. Would this full moon look good with this holy structure?

In the composition, I wanted to keep the moon fairly low and I knew that I'd have to visualize the frame as I recomposed the church for the second shot. I decided to keep the building low in the shot, too, creating a negative space of blue sky above.

I had recently read about this technique but had never thought of using it before.

The film was the house brand of Black's Cameras, a 36-exposure, 200 ASA slide film, which was manufactured by Fuji Film. The rule of thumb for shooting the moon was f/8 and a shutter speed that equalled the reciprocal of the lens focal lenght: that is, for a 50mm lens, the reciprocal would be 1/50th of a second, but because the camera didn't have a setting for that speed, you would choose the next-fastest speed, which would be 1/60th of a second.

For this shot, I used my 70-200mm lens, and for the moon I would have zoomed to its maximum magnification (I know this because I still have both the camera and the lens). I would have set the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second.

I then swung around, changed the zoom to 70mm, opened the aperture as wide as I could, f/4.5 (it wasn't a great lens), and shot at the slowest speed that I could, for hand-held, at that magnification, which would have been 1/125th of a second (possibly 1/60th of a second if I was feeling particularly steady).

Here's the shot.

I've been going through my old slides again, looking to digitally revive images that I felt were well-composed or shots where I tried experimenting. With the slide scanned, I used Corel PaintShop Pro 2021 to sharpen the image, provide a bit more contrast, and to pump up the colour a bit, but only because there was some colour loss due to the scanning. The image looks more or less exactly as it does when I hold the slide up to the light.

Oh, yeah, and I removed the dust and other spots that were caught during the scan.

I'll be sharing more of these, perhaps enhancing them through Luminar AI. Stay tuned.

Throwback Thursday: God Damn, That Hair!

Over the years, I've shared some embarrassing photos of the hair styles of my youth, but none have been more embarrassing than when I was in my early 20s, in the late 1980s.

(Well, there was that Year of the 'Fro, but let's not speak of that.)

A couple of days ago, as I was searching through old photo albums (remember when we used to print photographs and place them in binders?), looking for images of DW and me, in our early years of dating and travelling, I came across some photos that stood out. Not because they were well-composed, properly focused, or of any real interest, but because of what stood out, more than anything else, in the pictures.

My hair.

They were snapshots taken of me. Portraits, of a kind. Shot from the waist up, with me standing on a slight angle, in half-profile but head mostly facing the lens.

The first shot stood out, to a lesser degree, because I was wearing a respirator and face shield. I immediately remembered the day. A datestamp, faded, in the upper-right corner (though, not visible in the scanned and digitally touched-up copy), showed that the photo was captured on my birthday, in 1987.

It was a quiet day in the camera store, in the Merivale Mall, and a couple of things were going on. First, I was helping the photo-lab technicians change the chemicals in our then state-of-the-art printer (which accounted for the protective gear—I would have also worn a lab coat to protect my clothes).

Second, my colleagues and I were playing with one of the pocket cameras, which captured the date on the image. I know that this wasn't shot with any of my cameras because, at the time, I owned no 35mm camera that would imprint numbers on the film.

Third, because we also offered a passport-photo service, I posed for the photo in front of our white backdrop.

These three factors brought back the memory of the day. It was quiet in the store, so my colleagues and I did what we usually did when there was little left in the store to do—when there were no customers, no shelves to stock, no display cases to clean. We played with the cameras to better familiarize ourselves with the products we offered to customers.

My colleague was going to capture an image of me, but before she did, our lab technician asked if I could help carry a large plastic container filled with developing liquid. I suited up and gave my assistance.

Once finished, I removed the lab coat, but my sales colleague said, "That mask is fetching, Ross. You should keep it on."

Thus, the photo.

The flash cast a shadow on the passport backdrop, but there was no mistaking the mass of long, wavy hair in the back. That infamous hockey hair.

Looking at it, the other day, in the photo album, I shook my head. To think that I thought that this hair style suited me.

Flipping the pages, I jumped ahead to June 3, 1989. It was the wedding day of an elementary schoolhood friend (schoolhood? is that a word?), and I was one of his groomsmen. The black tuxedos with the bright-red cummerbund, matching kerchief and bow tie marked the end of the 80s. But I still had that damned hair.

I remember that day. I would have actually gone to my hairdresser earlier that day and said, "Clean me up, I have a wedding to attend. But keep the hair long in the back."

These days, when I get my hair cut, I tell my stylist to keep it short. No waves, no curls. When I wash my hair, I want to spend no more than a few seconds brushing it and then getting on with my life.

May hockey hair be gone forever.

Photo Friday: Bounder of Adventure

Not being a tall man, I always like to climb structures to gain a better vantage for my photography.

Despite the temperature being around 40°C, I was never deterred from carrying my full camera bag and lugging around all of my gear.

In 1989, visitors were still allowed to climb up the great pyramid at Chichen Itza and the structures of Tulum. On my current visit to Mexico, the only pyramid I'll be climbing is the great one at Cobá. Because I'm still on the Mayan Riviera and without access to my computer, you'll have to see my latest photos of my Mexican trip after I return, next Tuesday.

In this photo, I have my camera bag strapped over my shoulder. It held two zoom lenses, a flash, and about a dozen filters. One of my travel companions used my Minolta X-700, which had the MD-1 motor drive attached. I believe my 50mm lens is mounted.

You can also see my tripod, which I carried almost everywhere but seldom used. Around my neck is my secondary camera, a Nikon One Touch.

I was ready for anything.

Happy Friday! 

Pass The Tequila, Sheila!

The only women on this island, as far as I could tell, were the ones we brought with us. I had three with me. There were loads of others on the boat.

Isla Mujeres, or The Island of Women, was our party destination for the evening. Just to the northeast of Cancun, Mexico, it was an up-and-coming tourist destination, and we were off to a beach party. Johnny Banana and his band was to perform live Caribbean music while we danced and participated in drinking games, all organized by a Cancun tourist group.

My lady friends and I were drinking a lot over our vacation. And our drink of choice, surprisingly, was tequila.

Normally, I can't drink tequila. It all goes back to an evening, in my teens, when some friends and I got into the stuff that we raided from one parents' liquor cabinet. We had already had a couple of bottles of beer—we had waited outside the Brewer's Retail store (now, The Beer Store), looking for someone who would buy us a six-pack—and decided to do a couple of shots of whatever could be dipped into without being obvious that liquid was missing.

I threw back my first shot and immediately felt ill. I ran to the bathroom and barely got over the toilet before I started vomiting violently.

I chalked it up to mixing beer and liquor.

But no: whenever I drank tequila—be it my first drink on a full stomach or empty stomach, be it a shot or a small sip—as soon as it went down, it came straight back up.

Mexico was an entirely different situation. I had tequila held out to me from a person standing in front of a restaurant on our first night. He was trying to entice us to come in. "Free tequila poppers all night," he beckoned.

I was reluctant, but egged on my the three women in my group, I accepted the proffered shot glass. "You're going to regret this," I said to them as I tilted back my head and poured the clear fluid down my throat.

It stayed down.

We went into the restaurant and drank until we could barely stand. It was one of my friends who was sick to her stomach, the next morning and well into the afternoon, when she threw up in the Caribbean waters.

And here we were, on Isla Mujeres, ready to party and play more drinking games.

At one point in the evening, the organizers divided the party-goers into two groups: men against women. A relay race was prepared and we were given the instructions:

1. Take a swig of tequila from a jumbo bottle.
2. Take the proffered stick with a string attached to one end and try to pull a wooden fish out of the sand, like you're fishing.
3. With the fish out of the sand, drop the stick and run to the other end of the beach, where someone awaited with another bottle of tequila.
4. Take a giant swig from the bottle.
5. Place one hand on a wooden pole, which extended a foot out of the sand, and, while staring at the pole and keeping the one hand on it, run around it 10 times.
6. Run back to the starting point and tag the next person.
7. The first team to complete the relay course wins.

The guys won.

I was so dizzy and drunk that I could barely stand straight, but I joined the rest of my team in lining up to win our prize. The prize was a full bottle of tequila.

We stood in a line and faced the losers. The first person in our line was passed the bottle and he had to drink as much as he could, and then pass the bottle on. We were told that the bottle had to be empty by the time everyone had a swig.

I turned to the guy next to me, who would be receiving the bottle before me. "Take as much as you can, buddy," I said. "If I have another swig, I'm going to hurl."

"Me too," he said.

The bottle reached him. He took a couple of gulps and then handed me the bottle. I filled my mouth with as much as it could hold before passing the bottle onto the next fellow.

With all eyes following the bottle, as soon as it left my hands, I turned around and spat out the tequila. The guy before me, who took a few gulps, said, "Oh man, I should have thought of doing that," and promptly threw up.

I said the guys won the relay. In retrospect, I think we lost.

BTW: for those of you who don't get the reference to my title, either you're too young, not Canadian, or don't remember your political history. Google it.

Throwback Thursday: Party Crashers

DW and her best friend, Kitty, have been close for as long as I've known either of them, and I knew Kitty before I even really knew DW. Kitty was the younger sister of one of my high-school friends, and when she started attending my school, I would often say hello to her when she passed in the halls.

DW swears that she was always standing right next to Kitty, but I never noticed her.

When DW and I started dating, in March of 1989, we would often hang around our respective friends. Today, it's hard to say whose friend is whose, we're all so intertwined. And, in early spring, DW, Kitty and I found ourselves downtown, enjoying a sunny afternoon.

At the War Memorial, we spied what looked like a group of important dignitaries or ministers, flanked by RCMP officers in their ceremonial garb. (If you every see Mounties dressed like this on TV, on regular duty, it's not authentic.)

"Hey," I suggested, "if you run up and pose in front of this group, I'll take a picture."

They didn't need further prompting.

DW and Kitty: photo-bombing before social media made it a thing.
 

Throwback Thursday: Poolside

It was the summer of '89.

Almost every weekend, I partied with my buddy, Andy, at his folks' house on March Road, north of Kanata, just before the turn in the road and the intersection of Dunrobin Road.

There were always people in the house, always guests staying over. I spent more weekends, drinking beer and singing along with Andy's brother-in-law, who strummed his acoustic guitar 'til the wee hours of the morning, than I spent at my own home. I shared a spare bed more weekends with my girlfriend's best friend than I did with my girlfriend, who was planting trees in Northern Ontario and then travelling throughout Europe.

The friend and I slept. That was all.

Behind the house was a large, above-ground pool, with a spacious cedar deck built around it. More beer, soaking in the sun or taking a dip. When the sun was out, that's where you could always find us.

Poolside.

It was a great summer.

Wordless Wednesday: 1989 & 2015

Wordless Wednesday: Time Machine 7

Massena, NY, 1989

Wordless Wednesday: Time Machine 2

Cancun, Mexico: 1989