Ottawa Street Blues

The nice weather we experienced on Thursday continued into Friday, so that meant our little trip to Ottawa Street! What brought us to this strip in the Crown Point neighbourhood was, well, fabric stores. Kathleen’s main hobby is sewing (there is a 90% chance on any given day that either one or both of us are wearing a dress or skirt she has made) and there are many fabric stores along the street. This stands in contrast to Ottawa, where there is one (fantastic) indie shop (two, if you include Almonte), and suburban Fabricland outlets.

So it was about mid-morning that we left our hotel and hopped on the 1 down Main Street, for the corner of Main and Ottawa. Aside from making photos along the way, the first order of business was breakfast! We decided on The Cannon at, well Cannon and Ottawa. Kathleen had a classic waffle and I had a waffle breakfast sandwich. Both very tasty and next time we’re in town, we’ll be sure to return!

Tummies filled, we left the coffee shop and jumped right into it!

…and walked right into a book store!

(The City & The City)

and walked right out!

…with new books!

(that we paid for, of course)

This turned out to be somewhat auspicious where the fabric mission was concerned because – for one – many of the fabric stores, we learned, specialize in things like drapery fabric, upholstery, and, well, other clothing for the home.

Not really part of the hobby.

Secondly, unless a phenomenal deal has been located, purchasing fabric without a plan to use it is a great way to unintentionally start one’s own fabric store. Since both of us are on some fairly thin ice where hobbies-that-consume-our-limited-space are concerned, without a specific need or plan, no fabric accompanied us home in the end!

It was about here, when we arrived at the corner of Ottawa and Barton that one cause of the blues struck: I had the camera’s exposure compensation ring set to “2x” (better known as +1 on most cameras), which let in twice the amount of light! I had to make a note to pull it back in development, but as you can see from the results above, I wasn’t able to regain full control!

There other cause of the blues was what I will call a dedicated hobgoblin requiring that Kathleen find her way through the rabbit warren that is Jackson Square that morning to find an open pharmacy. It did cast a bit of a tall shadow over this part of our vacation!

1. Why would I pull this by ⅔ of a stop? Good question! I accidentally had the camera on +1 (2x) exposure compensation! I only noticed at the end of the roll. In the sun. On a busy street corner (Ottawa & Barton). I didn’t have timings for 160 for any of the developers I have and wasn’t confident in guessing, so I developed at 200! ↩︎