It's not as grim as it sounds, trust me.
This photo was taken over 2 years ago. It was the dead of summer back home in Regina, SK.
During this time I photographed Chance's album cover. The cover is pretty heavily steeped in what Regina was. The cake had been ordered from Cathedral Bakery, a bakery in one of our few semi-cool neighbourhoods of the city. We found the plate at the same Value Village i've been shopping at since I was a kid, and the material that frames this is the aged wall paper from Chance's house growing up.
All the recording was being done in a time there was a lot of changes happening in both of our lives, but I could see it especially in Chance's. Every year slid into the next, and that house he grew up in always stayed the same in one way or another, but through out these weeks of recording and after, it was being prepped for renewal. The title of the album, and the songs themselves, were solemnly fitting for the changes occurring. Without going into too much detail, I felt that house was a large symbol of the past. By the time Chance and Dan, Chance's good friend, were recording, the house was already being pulled apart to be renovated. This was the house Chance grew up in, and after 27 years of either living in it, or having it be present in his life, the curtains were drawing. I find there's a lot more significance to the changing of that home, and the time spent there.
I'm glad the wallpaper was present in the photo. It was a better fit than I even realized when we shot it.
When I think back to when this photo was taken, it's the Everly Brothers' All I Have to do is Dream that comes to mind.
I remember the first time I heard this song, it was in the ending credits of "Riding in Cars With Boys" with Drew Barrymore. Not a memorable movie by any means, it was one of those movies that play on a channel you're stuck on because the remote's lost, and you end up watching it anyways, but it's one of those funny details I equate with my introduction to the Everly Brothers. I must've been about 6 or 7 the first time I heard it, even back then, it forced me to feel something beyond the mental grasp of a child. I always appreciate a song that can accomplish that. And this is certainly one of them.
The surfer-esque guitar strums me into a dreamy state, and it's already got me sold. It's a tender love ballad i'd see gawky teenagers dancing to on TV. Depending on the verses you pay mind to, it fits to various forms of what it means to long for something, or someone. When I was younger I likened it to losing a parent, but the verses that stuck out to me in that time were the ones written for someone they can only hope to be with in their dreams.
“I need you so that I could die,
I love you so and that is why,
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream”
When I took this photo, it was a time Chance and I weren't together yet, there were some obstacles too daunting to approach, but i'll spare you the details. Although not yet together, we did both take comfort in this song. It bridged the gap we couldn't quite leap yet. I felt some days were better spent dreaming when reality wasn't quite cutting it.