Travel Journal — Ottawa, Part I
A couple of years ago my wife and I decided to take a trip up to the city of Ottawa. Well, my wife decided to take a trip up to the city of Ottawa to visit our friend Andrea, and I decided to tag along, always happy to visit a new space I haven’t been before.
This is a traveling relationship that’s worked out extremely well. We go somewhere together, she spends time with friends, and I carve out a space to wake up early, go straight to the heart of the city, and explore.
In Ottawa, I found a little bit of everything I love. There are interesting and unique little coffee shops, modern and beautiful museums, historic buildings, busy streets, and — perhaps most importantly — croissants.
It’s also extremely walkable, and I had no problem going from edge to edge and district to district without breaking a sweat or finding an Uber, a major benefit when I have a desire to visit every coffee shop ever, one after another. Coffee shop tourism is my thing, after all.
I also, of course, took photos — and some of the photos I took on my first trip to Ottawa ended up being extremely important to me. As someone who was just beginning to consider myself worthy of the title photographer, it felt empowering to visit a city foreign to me and take pictures which I greatly enjoyed.
I had just recently purchased My First Serious Camera, an Olympus OM-D, and I was excited to get out of my own city and take it somewhere new. It didn’t take long — as soon as we got to our hotel room, I looked out the window, pushed the camera up to the glass, and took a photo:
Looking at it, I immediately felt happy about my decision to visit Ottawa. The city proved to be a perfect candidate for both my own enjoyment and honing my photography skills. I would spend time working in a coffee shop I happened to walk by, at some point feeling ready for a break and leaving, walking no where in particular but often ending up in some space with a beautiful view like this one:
Time and time again, Ottawa felt like a breathtaking (and relaxing) place to be, and I left feeling both rested and creatively recharged. I found that those two photos above felt good enough to publish on Unsplash, a website I had recently learned about and desperately wanted to contribute to. I think I was right, as to date they’ve been viewed together almost a million times and received a few thousand downloads. To see my photos being both viewed and used was an extremely gratifying experience, and proved beneficial time and time again as I considered diving deeper into the world of photography.
As soon as I left, I realized that I very much wanted to visit again, and I finally got a chance to do so last weekend. I’ll share more on that, tomorrow.
