August 11 - At Lake Louise

It was a beautiful day when Lyle and I drove to Lake Louise with my sister, Jill. The view of the lake with the mountains in the background is quite spectacular. Of course, these days my vision of the lake is restricted to memories of days when I could see, but even this didn’t detract from our enjoyment of the afternoon.

I have been having a little trouble with my knee so for some of the time I sat on a bench while Lyle and Jill walked the lakeside trail. It was so relaxing sitting in the sunshine and listening to the cacophony of voices as tourists from nearly every part of the globe passed by my spot on the bench. It was hard to imagine that there were so many, many different languages being spoken. It seemed to me that English was almost in the minority.

When Lyle and Jill came back from their walk, Jill wanted me to take her picture.  Lyle offered to do this, but Jill was fairly insistent that I be the one to take the shot. She said, “It’s always more exciting when you take the pictures, Sue. I never know what you are going to get in the frame! “

 So, I laid my white cane on the bench and held the phone as Jill instructed.  “It’s easy ,“  she said.  “You just press on this part of the screen and keep your fingers away from the top edge where the camera is.”  Then you can point the phone towards my voice.”

I did as she directed, but I guess I had a bit of a heavy hand. With my first attempt I took one hundred pictures. Jill was quite surprised, but patiently went through the instructions again.  This time I managed an almost perfect shot. I have added it to this post.  The picture shows Lyle and Jill standing side by side with the lake and mountain in the background. Apparently the picture is almost perfectly framed.

Sue's photo of Jill and Lyle

 Jill said, “That’s amazing!  You take pictures equally as well as someone who can see! Well, perhaps not all the time, but sometimes even better.”

 I must admit that I enjoyed this photography experience. I also wondered what the passers by were thinking as I put my white cane to the side and moved forward to hold and aim the little camera. The experience reminded me of the photography display, Sight Unseen, at the Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg. It was fun to do something different even if I couldn’t see the results.