Finally enjoying the Niagara-on-the-Lake Icewine Festival

January 2012

As I was meandering in and around the pristine white special event tents and contrastingly colourful attire of festival visitors, I knew I was going to be blogging about it later. I took various intentionally representational photographs showing the layout of the wine and food stations, capturing snapshots of the effervescent people who were attending, and attempting to showcase the heated passion behind the icy craft...

But this picture, strangely enough, emerged as my favourite. I say "strangely" because it was staged. But I still like it. It's not because of who owns that hand and corresponding lips that I know will once again press against that glass... although that is part of it...

I love how the glass reflects the brightness of a much welcomed fresh winter day, how the subject is set apart from a background of eclectic Queen Street shops, how the festival logo etching is just a little bit visible on its bowl,  and especially how the ruddy complexion of the icewine that slides along the interior of the glass makes my mouth water. When I look at it now, I can practically taste its bold, luxuriant flavour, its unapologetic sweetness... I can feel its dense smoothness coating my tongue and arousing my tastebuds...

For on this day, the "liquid gold" being poured into all the coolest open-air glasses completely won me over: I had tried icewine once or twice over the years, and I always felt disappointed that I wasn't swept up under its spell as so many of its aficionados were. Perhaps, the past, I was sipping the wrong concoction for my palate. Perhaps I was trying too hard.

On this day, I was elated to be out in the fresh Niagara air, enthusiastically enjoying the offerings from several participating wineries - some I knew well and some I'd never tasted before. In fact, I think it was the cold winter air that prepared my tastebuds and enhanced my sampling experience... perhaps the ideal appetizer for such a sumptuous treat!

Brooklyn Bridge, NYC

One of my favourite scenes in the original Sex and the City movie takes place towards the end: Miranda is walking on the Brooklyn Bridge hoping to see her one-time unfaithful husband and love of her life, Steve, walking towards her. Those recognisable double arches stretch up into the blue sky and the sun is shining down through the cool spring air onto all the pedestrians. As Al Green and Joss Stone sing about mending a broken heart, Miranda spots Steve and their feet can't bring them together quickly enough because this union signals an unspoken agreement to let go of their past hurts and move forward together in love. Every time I watch it, I think how poetically it combines everything that I love about New York City: the urban lifestyle, the stylish people, that brilliantly written tv series, and the familiar architecture that I love to explore.

I think walking that familiar bridge is the last untouched line on my New York City To Do List. I've scurried up and down Manhattan's avenues and streets like a little mouse, shamelessly playing tourist on five separate, dynamic occasions, albeit for a day at a time! I've photographed my reflection in the exterior window of the Empire State Building, reflected on the calm after the 9-11 storm at the World Trade Centre Memorial, and became swept away in a sea of people amongst Times Square's towers of neon and pixels. Yes, I heart New York. But I still haven't really seen the Brooklyn Bridge.

That explains why I am supplementing this post with a substandard image of that famous span. I realise it doesn't truly do it justice. I didn't really even have a whole lot of control over how it came out being that I shot it while sitting aboard a CitySightsNY double decker tour bus! Even though the main aim of that particular visit was to photograph the bridge while standing somewhere between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I figured I better take what I can get as we passed by. It's like taking a picture of a deer you spot while walking in the forest: take a picture as soon as you see it and then work on getting more refined as you move closer. That way, if it darts out of view, you'll at least have something to say you saw it...