Flying kites by sunset - 1991

"What were the skies like when you were young?
They went on forever
And they -- when I
We lived in Arizona
And the skies always had little fluffy clouds
And they were long and clear
And there were lots of stars, at night
And when it rained it would all turn
It -- they were beautiful
The most beautiful skies as a matter of fact
The sunsets were purple and red
And yellow and on fire
And the clouds would catch the colors everywhere..."

-Orb, Fluffy Little Clouds

My backyard and old stomping grounds, 1989.

I was born in a time before the sun could kill you with a touch. When there were still CFCs in spray cans, Freon in refrigerators, and ozone above the poles. Gone now - but I started taking pictures and studying the quality of light at this latitude long before then. I think that I have seen firsthand the changes in our atmosphere. It's gone hard and intense, high contrasty and brittle. Sure, it was never good at mid-day, but now we rarely see a proper magic hour. Barring smog and air pollution days, direct sun burns the retinas and CCDs from zenith to azimuth.

Maybe. Or maybe, these days, I don't get enough sunlight to tell. 

Stomping grounds II. Another day dies under the weight of late summer biomass.

Air quality warning. Toronto, 1993.Sunset on Kitsilano Beach, BC. Vancouver 20061989: I develop a habit of climbing onto rooftops to watch the sunset and stars.

1991 was a good year for sunsets.

With images from my Archives. (Apologies for the grain. Excepting the 35mm slides, which were shot on a Canon AE-1, these are shitty printscans from my first pocket cameras.)

Mammatus clouds over Suffield Alberta, 2006