yyt

Nothing really special happened to-day.

Got up early enough to be out and about before downtown became populated. I wanted to get there to photograph the remnant of the night before but also having the luxury of photographing when there were no people about. Besides it wasn’t raining.

The plan was to walk Duckworth Street to the end then return via Water Street. Immediately I modified the outing by ignoring the utopia gone wrong feeling of New Gower Street and headed for that oh so touristy George Street.

In the end a good choice as I photograph the bins of the city workers, found a sweater left at one of the more generic bars –ironically with the papers that said whoever this person was s/he had been screeched in.

I think that I would be able to photograph situations with a touch of formalism but I found that I was also photographing announcements that had fallen so all one saw was a white piece of paper – they were so beautiful against the grime but I also saw them as missives mislaid somehow miscommunicated.

Cannot remember what I really photographed which can be a good thing as when I do they don’t turn out the way that I expected. One example of that I am sure will be the KFC sign which is blocking The Narrows with Signal Hill in the background. Tried to hard for that.

A shock at the end of Duckworth Street as the convenience at Signal Hill Road and the Battery was closed for good. I could have sworn that it was open on Canada Day. It really shouldn’t have surprised me as beside the Devon House new condos are going up. Some parts of St. John’s are becoming like anyplace else.

Walked back along Water until I realised that I was that point where I am always walking along Water – McMurdo’s Lane – so I headed up behind the old CBC to wander neighbourhoods back.

I had wanted to photograph a nice convenience that was still functioning but was too late. People were waiting out front.

In the neighbourhood behind City Hall and Mile One, I was more formal until I came to the clothes line when I went for the objects.

With time to spare before the dog parade, I headed back out to finish off some thoughts. In the rain of two days ago when I was making plans that were greater than the weather would allow – my shoes still stink and am not sure if it is from walking out into the North Atlantic during Capelin Fest in Middle Cove or the being wet constantly all day Friday and Saturday – I ran across what seemed to me to be an inordinately high number of balloons in the street. I chalked it up to Canada Day but wanted to go out and photograph their sad carcasses strewn all over. No metaphors implied or intended – yet.

Headed up with the digital camera and started searching.
-are you the police? A kid asks me after he had been spying on me for some time
-no I am photographing the broken balloons take it that it is from Canada Day.
-no me and my friend had a water fight.
Showed him what I had taken on the digital camera he seemed satisfied and went off (around the block as I encountered him again heading home).

About an hour of this when I headed back for a walk over to the Pond at Quidi Vidi and the pet parade.

It was to be a showing and parade of Newfoundlands. Labradors and other dogs taking place between 2PM and 4PM.

We wander the neighbourhoods still making a direct line for the event and arriving at the pond at the pond at 2:30 see nothing.

Two traffic warders are discussing upcoming traffic patterns and me thinking that it had to do with the pet parade I ask.
-what?
-the pet parade it is supposedly happening here.
-I saw some dogs over there by the regiment.

Further along I ask a man with a dog and again no clue.

We walk to the area where there is some activity and sure enough…

It everything I expected and less. It seems that we are late and the parade has started but instead of a grandstand and judges which I was expecting the parade was a walk around the pond. They were so dispersed along the route that the people manning the table couldn’t find them.

A couple of them were coming in the wrong direction. One was Monica Dominguez who used to be the caretaker for Martin and Gabrielle’s place.

We sat, listened to the guitarist who is usually in Water Street. I also made his snap.

One of Monica’s Newfoundland pup’s slobbered on Zequinho.



As I said it was everything I was expecting and less as I was expecting disorder and a small turnout but I was expecting more of an event. At the end everyone photographed the group dogs owners and the like. We headed off to Quidi Vidi for a walk.

Stopped in a antique shop – Mallard Cottage - in the village run by an British ex-pat in her mid eighties who had turned the shop over to her daughter but was “allowed” to run it on Sundays.

Quite chatty and since we had the same interests – old postcards she chatted even more. Bought some Newfoundland stamps to have more options with Clarke’s Beach. She noted that I had most members of the royal family of the time but no Queen Victoria. I was more interested in the moose, caribou and landscape stamps and could have given up the royals all together. I wandered the shop until some five cork floats were bought by the real Wisconsinite.

Made he snap – which she seemed to be in pain during the whole process.

-Ask me some questions. She said to the real Wisconsinite.

After finding that the brewery was closed on Sunday – at least for a beer – we headed up to Signal Hill via Cuckholds Cove. Stopping quite often to look out over the Atlantic and for bird species quizzes.
-what’s that?
-a bird? No a sea bird?

Close to the roads either down by Quidi Vidi or when we reached Signal Hill, there were quite a few people, beyond that it dwindled. Not as much as it would in the states - people simply walk more here in St. John’s – but the tourists had disappeared.

Continued through the path that leads through the Narrows and into the Battery me wary of the wind as the last time i took this path minor concerns like railings and steps weren't thought of. There was the path and the cliff. Not many images made below the Marconi Tower land takes more time to take it in than city, I can always grasp on to the formal or some juxtaposition in urban environments on the land I have to look longer and harder.

Laundry lines, basketball hoops, the domestic running into the fishery and the docks. I scared one family back into their home when after they greeted us I said that I had to make their snap.

-don’t look at me she owns the place. one woman said as they scattered.

Two pints at the duke seemed to be the perfect top off for a day that was ordinary.