These photos stared at me and begged to have some love put into editing them and getting them posted, but I couldn’t make myself do it. The thought of reliving the moments, the smells, the adventure, it was all too real.
I’ve taken the plunge and moved myself back home, across the world, back into a snow covered land, but the memories of the last two years are all too fresh; they still haunt me and teach me, they have shaped me and they propel me forward into …. what? I can’t honestly say.
I’ve moved myself back to Revelstoke, a wee gem of a place nestled in the heart of the British Columbia Mountains. When I look out my window and see flakes of frozen water falling from the sky, when I lace up my boots, and have to warm up the car while scraping snow or ice from it’s outsides, being a foreigner who studied abroad for two years seems so dreamlike. Or perhaps being back in the familiar, discounts the unreal reality of being back in Canada. I’m not sure that I have completely readjusted to being back home, sometimes I think I expect too much of myself, find work right away and start life back up, but processing what I went through, endured and underwent the last two years surely takes more time to swallow and I must allow myself to do just that.
I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, wandering around trying to find a solid job in this saturated ski haven; time to reflect, process, and reconnect with others and self. In that time I am observing beauty that must be captured through a lens at some point and I also coerced myself to finally look at these memories from merely a few short months ago.
As you look on, perhaps you can envision me stumbling on cobblestones, wandering through many closes, watching so many people stream down the pavement with brutally obtrusive tourist traps every which way your eye can see.
Tartan scarfs lined the outside of merchants shops, highland coos were in all shapes, sizes and textures, Whiskey barrels and thistles marred vision as I tried to fasten images on my camera.
I wandered and wandered and wandered the streets of Edinburgh for three days straight, averaging 7-9 hours on foot. The days were blaring winter’s immediate decent and my ice-cold fingers weren’t too pleased with my photo walks.
My aim was to capture the city the way I saw it, but still capture it’s essence, after all it is one of the most visited and beautiful cities in Scotland and it’s on the top of my favorite ‘must visit’ list.
As I dogged sketchy men trying to coax me into having a coffee and city tour with them, I pretended to not be traveling alone, and wandered with my camera, maintaining my goal of meandering all about the city and came away knowing there are many more photos to be had, alleys to explore, and adventures to be had there one day.
