Photos taken recently rambling around Hants County, Nova Scotia, with my camera. I’m usually on my way to somewhere and stop to take a few photos. It works better when I’m alone, as I get complaints from family members.”You’ve taken this photo a hundred a hundred times. Let’s get going!” (Perhaps they’re right.)
According to Wikipedia, the name Hants is an old abbreviation for the English county of Hampshire, from the Old English name Hantescire. It’s beautiful here, especially in autumn.
This is the place I call home, one of three Brooklyns in Nova Scotia. It was founded in 1761 and called Nelegakumik by the Mi’kmaq Nation (meaning “broken snowshoes”).
I stopped the car on Route 14 and let the high beams illuminate the speed sign. It’s a technique I use on quiet nights when there is little traffic.
These roads near my home are so familiar to me. I know them like a friend, having traveled them literally thousands of times. Every corner, every dip and hill, every bump remains in my memory. Most of my childhood dreams were set on these roads, so at many places I could recall a dream. It’s a pleasure to photograph them in all seasons, under different lighting conditions, and at all times of day. I usually do this when I’m alone as it can annoy family members–“you’re getting out of the car again?”
These road photos are usually taken when there are few cars on the road and taken at spots where it is safe and convenient to pull over. And I have my favourite spots that I photograph again and again. My wife sometimes remarks that I have taken that same shot a hundred times. She’s right, in a sense. But there are subtle things like light and colour that can make the same scene look unique in a photo.
Roads are powerful metaphors. We each travel our own road in life and no one else can live it for us. These images are like little poems from Hants County, Nova Scotia, stops along the road.
