A community proud of the past, confident in the future.

As you continue north east, along the detroit river and by the shores of Lake Saint Clair, one will venture into the town of Tecumseh, Ontario; a nice little residential area. It was nice visiting with my friend, taking some time to be by myself while he worked and enjoyed the company of his .. 10 plus Labrador (sorry! Forget the exact age.)

The streets are tree lined in the old fashion way, that still managed to look beautiful in the snow. Overshadowing the streets that made me want to come back in the fall with the beautiful golds and oranges. It’s definitely a suburbia that still manages to keep its charm despite the season.

It’s known as ‘The City of Roses’ why I couldn’t tell you. Maybe in the summer when the air isn’t ice cold, snow doesn’t crunch under your feet and the wind doesn’t blow the ice floes down the river, they have beds of roses down by the bank of the Detroit River. In the winter mind you, I wouldn’t call it the City of Roses. To be honest even when the sun managed to peak it’s little head over the clouds did I enjoy Windsor, Ontario.

I’ve been through London. I’ve spent ten hours at the back of a Greyhound bus squished between two sketchy looking characters. I’ve had a guy try to grind himself against me in Vancouver’s skytrain. I’ve never felt so dirty, so aware of how sketchy my surroundings were like I was walking through downtown Windsor. I’ve always felt comfortable carrying my camera out, here I didn’t.

Due to it’s close proximity to Detroit, just a skip and a hop across the river, (a photo of the bridge is down below) a lot of 19 and 20 year old will come to enjoy the forbidden fruits of the US – in the name of drinking, gambling, and strip bars. The Weather Network has designated Windsor the smog capital of the world, due to it being downwind from strong polluters in the United States and a lot of respiratory illnesses are present.

I feel like the below photos present people with the typical stereotype of Canadian winters. Coming from the west coast, where we get no more then three snowfalls that only last 24 hours, I can see what people think when looking at these photos. I can see why people get depressed, why people can’t see the beauty in there surroundings when they are presented with this gloomy picture several months of the year.

I’ll never say no to visit a place again, especially when I visit a place in the winter. I bet you Windsor truly is the City of Roses in the spring and summer. With beautiful flowers along the river front, old buildings and churches, I know for sure the residential area closer to Lake Saint Claire is beautiful, but the industrial area and downtown with strip joints every block in the winter? Not so much.

(click pano’s to enlarge)

Sometimes I’m lazy. I don’t feel like writing a big blog post to describe a few photos, but apparently with this photo I wasn’t allowed to get away with my normal routine. I was told “I wonder what you will write about my photo,” Bam! I was not allowed to get away with it. Now the pressure is on – do I say something sappy or hilarious, something serious or silly. Oh the pressure I’m under to perform.

My face is what some people would call a ‘glass face;’ all my emotions pretty much flicker across it and I make the most crazy faces when I concentrate, think, sing whatever you name I do it. I hate my smile and rarely like to pose nicely in front of something with a huge fake grin plastered on my face. It’s really not who I am, cue flashback to some Facebook photos of me *cough* moving on.

A smile reflects itself, where as looking at a crazy face makes you laugh. One of my goals is to create a little portrait database, get to know people write a blurb on them and take a black and white of them making a crazy face. I got to live with the below for three to four years and despite being in the deepest of funks all he would have to do is make a crazy face and the world would seem all that brighter.