I haven’t had much to post of late, but that’s what happens when you have a four-month-old on top of house-sitting for your in-laws for three weeks while your bathroom gets renovated.
Anyway, this is just an interesting thing that happened to me last week. On my lunch break I had to deliver a few prints to a customer who happened to have a wrap-around balcony on the 20th floor of her apartment building. She also happened to invite me to bring my camera so I could maybe get a few shots of the view. As it turns out, the weather wasn’t great, but I took some photos anyway. She said on a clear day you can pretty much see Guelph and that the sunsets, as I imagined, were spectacular.
As I was shooting, I noticed something interesting. Those in the area have probably noticed the plethora of high-rises being built, specifically in Waterloo. It’s even more noticeable from 20 storeys up. Looking northwest towards Laurier and UW, the skyline was filled with tall new buildings along with a bunch of cranes. Even on a dreary day it stood out. I took a few shots, tweeted it, put it on Facebook and got a few notices but didn’t really think much of it after that.
Later in the day I found out that the image had made its way to Reddit in two different threads. Both threads, although one had much more commentary, covered everything from fire codes to student wealth to the glut of student housing. It went off the rails pretty quickly.
I took the photo because I liked the composition of construction completely taking over the horizon, but I completely understand how it sparked a much bigger debate. If anything I would’ve appreciated the second Reddit tread to give credit to me for the image—the first one did—but at the same time I’m not surprised that this didn’t happen. I’m quite happy my photo reached so many people—is this what going viral is like?—but giving credit to the source is pretty easy.
