Vegas-bound

Gear down and locked
Mississauga, ON
November 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Our little family has been on the move a lot lately, so it's only fitting that I start the work week on a plane. I'm heading to a work thing, in a place I've never been before, and the next few days will hold lots of cool challenge and opportunity before my team and I can declare success and head home just in time for the weekend.

As I do every time I travel, I try to tell the story in pixels. When I travel alone, away from my family, the pictures take on a different role. Because we can't be together, I want to tell the story for them, to show them where I am, what I'm up to, and what it feels like. I miss my wife and kids from the moment I kiss them goodbye, but as I shoot and share, I feel like we're perhaps a little closer than Google Maps might suggest. Whatever works, right?

At this moment, our Q-400 had dropped out of the predawn clouds over Mississauga on the way into Toronto Pearson International Airport. The gear was down and locked, the flaps were down, and the sturdy twin-turboprop aircraft was being buffeted by the wind as rain streaked diagonally across the scratched plastic windows.

Add in muddy low light and it was hardly a recipe for photographic goodness. But as soon as I saw this shot, I knew it would rather nicely tell the story of the opening moments of this long trip. My photographer-daughter would, with a smile, call it a lousy picture. But she's learned so well that lousy pics sometimes tell the most important stories both of and for the family lucky enough to share them.

And, yes, I count myself lucky indeed.