I miss them. Were the summers of my childhood and youth really as savoury/sweet as I remember them? There was a feeling that I've found hard to recapture as an adult, especially as an older adult. It's an ethereal feeling that somehow the season was meant just for me. Days were long and languid. I grew up in a northern town that had a long beach along the lakefront. I remember the feeling of cool water flowing against my skin as I swam and ducked under the waves. I remember the taste of French fries liberally doused with salt and vinegar and served in a conical paper cup.
I remember walking along a lakefront where summer sunsets seemed to last forever. Evenings spent with like- minded creative friends. The anticipation of summer travels. The coolness and light of beautiful summer mornings.
Maybe I am viewing the past through the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia. Perhaps I've enjoyed so many great summer experiences that I've become a little inured to them.
No two summers are going to produce identical experiences. The old saying, while ridiculously trite, is still valid. "The only constant is change."
However, photography is a great tool for portraying the nostalgia of a season or scene. It lends itself to that other trite old saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I can't tell you how often I've experienced a feeling of déja vu the instant before I pushed a shutter button.
All this is a very long preamble to the age old back to school first assignment, "What I Did During The Summer". At least I get to include some (hopefully) interesting pictures with the assignment. Take that you other kids!
The beautiful community of Paris, Ontario where I make my home, has had its downtown core under construction all summer. (The Downtown Dig) I decided to embrace the chaos. Most of my cameras have the capacity to render a photo with just one colour leaving the rest of the frame in monochrome. (black and white) The predominant colour on a construction site is orange for safety. I went with it!
Of course summer is a lot more than construction projects. There are always festivals and interesting shows to see. This year we attended two plays during the Hamilton Fringe Festival. We also attended The Barton Village Festival, and took a day trip up to Alliston, Ontario for the Alliston Potato Festival.
This year marked the tenth anniversary of the last concert of the Tragically Hip. Earlier in the season we attended "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken", a musical featuring the songs of the Tragically Hip. More recently, at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, CBC presented a screening of the Hip's last concert in celebration of the band and the amazing Gord Downie. Unlike millions of other Canadians, I had never seen the footage of the last concert. Needless to say, for me, it was a moving experience.
I wrote a blog post about the passing of Gord Downie in October of 2017 https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2017/10/for-mr-downie.html
"Illusions of somedays. Cast in a golden light. No dress rehearsals. This is our life."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ffSi2dPtw
...more later
