Reflecting before departure

Impressionist skyline
Toronto, ON
February 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Art is everywhere around us. We just need to know where to look.

Like here, reflected on the glass curtain surface of an office building overlooking Union Station. I had been sitting on a train, awaiting a much-delayed departure for home, and found myself staring out the window looking for something, anything that jumped out from the grey blanket that had covered the city since I had first arrived here early this morning.

Winters in Canada are like that. When they’re at their worst, they seemingly suck all the color out of the outdoors, leaving a muddy, monochrome landscape in their wake. For good measure, throw in a dirty rail corridor that’s been under construction for longer than the country has existed. Or so it seems.

But regular trips to the big city have turned this concrete canyon into something approaching familiar territory to me. And this building, with its ever changing reflections, has topped the list. Most days I’m in the wrong car, or on the wrong side, or the light isn’t right, or I’m looking somewhere else as we roll past.

On this grim day, though, It was front-and-centre, and it didn’t take me long to rein in the impressionist/reflective skyline scene you see here. The colors are muted, and the light is lousy. But the result makes me smile all the same.

Because the realities of a Canadian winter mean the perfect conditions probably won’t happen anytime soon. So you make do with what you’ve been given, and look harder for those little snippets of wonder in the greys and the shadows. Sometimes you just get lucky. And when you don’t, there’s always next time.

Maybe this doesn't only apply to photography. Maybe I'll ponder that one on my next trip in.

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