Wading Through The Past

As is usual for this time of year, the time where I find I have too much time on my hands and not enough inspiration or get-up-and-go to get out of my house to take some photos, I putt around my old images and see what I can do to spice them up in Lightroom and Photoshop and post them on facebook and my blog for the world to see. So far, it's been a crackin' summer- well, late summer. The images I came up with are ones from many moons ago when I was more frequent in carrying my camera around and would shoot the bejeezus out of just about anything that wouldn't so much as budge, thereby keeping me in a state of staidness where my photos were concerned. Okay, this is turning into a pity party. I didn't mean for it to, I apologize. Now, back to the images I revamped, somewhat. The first one is from my trip to Washington D.C. a couple summers ago when I went to see my family. We went to the Martin Luther King memorial and it was glorious. The likeness of him is very striking. I'm not sure what outcome the artist wanted for this sculpture but, if they were going for stern, and, pensive, then they hit it spot on. He really looks like he's wearing the face that wrote the 'I Have a Dream' speech, Like the artist caught him just before he put pen to paper. The next images I shot on a city bus downtown during a particularly bad and, dreary day of rain. If I remember correctly, it got really dark, really quickly that day: two p.m. in the afternoon looked more like five p.m. in winter. I love days like these, they're so moody and full of character. Walking around the city on days like this often puts me in a mind set of a film noir kind of movie, or an independent film along the lines of Dark City with Rufus Sewell and Kiefer Sutherland. I was on the bus just waiting for it to take off when I saw this tableau in front of me. This was back when Iwas forcing myself to see differently, to step out of my comfort zone and expand my scope of view. Granted, this isn't THAT much out of my zone of comfort but still, at the time, this was something of a break through for me.

I love airports! If you've been following my blog then you already know this about me. I love to shoot in airports (if anyone from airport security is flagging this: I swear, my camera is not a weapon! I shoot with pixels (yes, they are real, not like Smurfs) and not bullets!). Another dark day found me at the Pierre Eliot Trudeau Airport walking around their new digs after a major renovation months before. I started out missing my favourite wall of glass where I used to watch the planes land and take off but soon found myself loving the open space of the place and marvelling at the segment that was attached/connected to the Marriott Hotel at the fare end of the building. It was a genius idea to make those two parts of the terminal come together, and, come together so well it did. The building blends together really well, so much so, that it has easily become one of my favourite places in Montreal to either shoot or just walk around. And, all that glass in the front really helps to make me forget my old wall of glass- almost. It brings in so much light that when inside, you're likely to think that you are still outside and on the pavement.