Under Construction in Rideau Forest
Category: Construction
Weather: Overcast with Wildfire Smoke
Location: Rideau Forest, Manotick, Ottawa, Canada
Several years ago, among shooting several other homes for Ottawa home builder and treasured client Or Bielak of Neoteric Developments, I visited this house that was in the early/mid stages of construction.
I’ve never felt so at home.
My father was a craftsman, a woodworker, a carpenter. I grew up on job sites like this with him working with pencil and saw. He was a master, keen on precision and perfection in every cut, every placement. Sure, they were dusty and cigarette smoke filled places, but you always have a fondness for the places where you spend your formative years, and this is no different. I can feel the drywall dust tickling my nostrils as I write this.
So, there was something very comforting to being in this home from that slice of my history, but other elements converged. The fact that everything was in the bare wood stage, right in this forest, as if the lumber came from this very plot of land. And, given that it’s Canada, it probably didn’t come from all that far away, comparatively.
Driving through the neighborhood took me back to other phases of my childhood, where any visit to a new town would involve a drive around the nicest neighborhood I could find to view the fine homes on display there. Driving through Rideau Forest, coming up to this house, I was washed over with waves of emotion. I realized my dreams were coming true. I always wanted to be in places like this, and I always assumed that meant living here - but this is so much better. If I lived there, I would just live in one.
But as a photographer of fine homes, I get to visit untold numbers of these neighborhoods and beautiful houses.
I now make a living doing the thing I love to do as a child - basking in the vision of beautiful homes in beautiful neighborhoods.
This realization really hit me as I shot this, and I even took a moment to record a video where I talked about all the emotion welling up in me. I cried a lot at the realization that my lifelong dreams were coming true.
I didn’t have my microphone on, because I’d turned it off earlier. Absolutely devastating.
I’m looking forward to the day, which I hope is coming soon, that an AI tool can read my lips, and return the words to the video. But for now, I’ll hold back the tears, and keep being thankful that I got to visit this gorgeous place, in the soft rainy haze, with the otherworldly orange glow from the smoke filled air.