Over the past few years, I have been making a concerted effort to explore more of Canada, America’s hat. Edmonton has always seemed like an interesting, blue-collar oil town that I wanted to visit. When I was in Calgary in 2024, I couldn’t fit it into my itinerary. This time around, though, it was a perfect stopover destination on the way further north.
I didn’t get much done apart from working. I had tried to get NHL hockey tickets and even decided to invest in some first-row, against-the-glass seats in hopes of using my new camera to catch high-speed action shots. Unfortunately, when I tried to purchase the tickets online, there was an error with the Ticketmaster checkout process that I didn’t realize until game night, a few days later.
I had another ticket fiasco, too! I found an orchestra playing Star Wars music in Edmonton, so I bought tickets. In my excitement to secure them, I overlooked that the date was January 11, not December 11. I had bought tickets for the wrong month. The owner of my Airbnb rental was not as appreciative as I would have been if someone had gifted me free Star Wars tickets 6 rows back, in the center. I like to think that I’m just accruing positive karma through persevering through my own mistakes. In that way, as I continue to make mistakes, I assure myself that I am also improving.
The highlight of Edmonton ended up being an outdoor Christmas market. It was the perfect opportunity to practice extreme, low-light, and cold shooting conditions. I made a lot of mistakes, but it was still fun using my new 16mm lens. Hopefully, you will see improvements as I learn to use my new camera. We can stumble through the learning process together.
