Barrie Dreamscapes
I’m a dreamer.
Time and time again I find myself drawn to that which is surreal, intangible, and often unbelievable. Some of my favourite art includes the fantastic work of Salvador Dali and his long legged elephants. I’ve always loved books that take you to another place, totally disconnected from here, either physically or philosophically. I use music to tell stories without words, and create visual sonic landscapes in my head when I listen to the music of others.
Some would say I’m pretty weird.
Going back to my teen years, I found a very unique place I could escape to, an almost dreamlike reality that exists right here. My life wasn’t always so rosy, there was a time when I just needed to get away. When I first moved into a city, Orillia, Ontario when I was about 17 I found a very unique place of solace right within the city itself. In the middle of winter, I was always fascinated by taking long walks in the city of the middle of the night. I’m not talking midnight, but a little later, about 2- 4 am.
I wasn’t attracted to anywhere in Orillia in particular, but rather in the transformation a city seems to undergo in those hours in winter. Now, living in Barrie, I find myself irresistibly drawn to the same qualities of this city.
There’s a few ways that cities change during this very brief window that makes them very, very surreal if you let yourself take it all in. Number one, during winter, and especially during a light snowfall, the sky is overcast. In the middle of the night the lights of the city turns the sky a very vivid orange-y colour. You could be walking around in a dark park and it would still be reasonably well lit due to the pseudo light reflected back from the sky. The fact that light seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere can be disconcerting and at the same time soothing. Number two, cities become abandoned. For these few hours, there are very few if any cars around on the inner city streets of any small-medium sized town. If it’s snowing, the streets will often be covered in snow without any tire tracks. Streetlights change of their own accord, the little men that tell you to walk or stop dance to the footseps of non-existent pedestrians. You can walk down the middle of the road if you want and no one would take notice. The city is devoid of any other movement, as if time itself stops so you can have a closer look at things. Number three, perhaps the most dreamlike quality, is the sound. It’s the kind of thing you can only experience very late in the city during, or shortly after, a snowfall. The ambient noise of the town is already low, and the fresh snow on the ground and in the air almost makes it seem as if you’re wearing earmuffs. Suddenly the sound of nearby highways, cars a few streets over, distant dogs and other city sounds all evaporate, and you’re left walking in a vacuum. A little abandoned world.
I’ve always been captivated by this.
As I’ve gone through the years I’ve also enjoyed photography. One thing that I’ve been impressed itself is how well this environment allows itself to be captured on film. If you get it right you can not only capture the landscape, but the very dreamlike space of the city itself.
Hopefully over the next few weeks the perfect night will present itself, and I’ll go out and capture some dreamscapes of Barrie. In the meantime, heres a few teasers I got shortly after midnight last night.
