Where does the time go?
I can't believe it's 24 years since I first visited Canada, a young 25 year old, I headed out to Canada on my first real adventure, it realy doesn't feel like it was almost a quarter of a century ago when I first headed out there, I remember walking to the terminal at Manchester airport, with a big grin on my face not knowing what lies ahead, but I knew I was going to have a great time.
As it was 24 years ago, I've lost most of the pictures, but I did stumble across these of Niagara Falls, so I thought I'd share some old photos, way before I took photography as serious as I do now.
I was mid march when I first visited, and it was a cool -20 at night, although it didn't feel that cold, it didn't feel like the cold does in England, maybe due to being less humid, it wasn't even frosty at night, not like it gets over here.
Due to it being cold though, with the spray from the falls, as soon as it touched an object, it instantly froze, creating a surreal ice landscape, it was fantastic to see and doubt I'll see anything like this again.
Now the camera I used, I paid around £750 for a 2mp Ricoh camera, back then digital cameras were just breaking through and I wanted a good one for my shots, when I look back at them now, the quality isn't there, and it ate batteries so much I kept having to buy new ones while I was in Niagara.
While I was there I had a lovely meal at the top of the Skylon tower, this was in the evening, I went out on to the viewing deck and looked down at the falls, it was lovely to see all the falls lit up in different colours, sadly my camera wasn't up to scratch to catch a decent shot (not myself I wasn't sure how to do long exposures at the time).
I ran this through some software to try and get the blur out, it is better than it originally looked, but certainly not up to par, it looks like some weird 3D effect on the shot, but it's just to show the colours at night.
After Skylon, I walked down to the horseshoe falls, looking at the lights, then something caught my eye down river, it looked like a star, but as around the brightness of Jupiter, maybe even brighter, the reason why I mentioned it is that to me, this was a UFO, before you think "Oh God, here we go!", it was zig-zagging all over the sky, certainly a pattern that a helicopter can't do, and certainly no plane, I said to the people that was there "that looks like a UFO!", but no one seemed interested in it only myself, which I thought strange, maybe my dinner was spiked and I was seeing things lol.
(A couple of views of the Skylon Tower)
(America and Bridal Vail Falls)
I absolutely loved it in Canada, and I did return back a few years later, around 2004, I went back to Niagara falls, and couldn't believe just how many more casino's that had been built etc, I'm not a gambling man, I only have the odd go on the lottery, so that side of things don't appeal to me much.
Flying back in 2000 was awesome too as I was treated to natures on light show, the Aurora Borealis, I was sat for what felt like hours just watching the colours in the sky change, it was brilliant although I did hurt my neck doing it lol.
There's so much more that I'd like to type, but I don't want to bore you all, however, I do hope you like this 24 year old shots, maybe one day I will return again.
Thanks again for reading my blog,
All the best :-)
