Editor’s Note: A move between Canadian provinces, from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island, has triggered a burst of creativity for Brenda Brown, a teacher and social worker. Almost immediately, she started to work on a book that mixes photography and song lyrics. Here, she explains the project, tentatively called The Sights and Sounds of PEI, and previews some of the photos. It’s a labor of love in more ways than one. In 2008, Brenda will marry Rodney Savidant, a leading PEI musician.

Story and Photos
by Brenda Brown

SUMMERSIDE, PEI, Canada – Almost immediately, I noticed two things about Prince Edward Island.

The first was everyone’s sense of pride in keeping the province beautiful. People appreciate their heritage and aren’t so frantic to keep up with the fast times.

The second was that the bright-red Island clay and the rich, deep greenery hold tremendous beauty, especially when placed against the blue of the Atlantic Ocean.

Since I spend a lot of time travelling across the Island to attend concerts, ceilidhs and festivals with Rodney Savidant, my fiance, I’ve had the pleasure to meet many songwriters and hear their work. I realized it’d be interesting to place the beauty of the lyrics together with the splendor of photography.

The idea hit me one day when on a drive through Breadalbane, a tiny community. Rodney told me about a song, “Downtown Heart of Breadalbane”, that Allan Rankin wrote, so I went home and researched it. Then I decided it’d be neat to take photos to match the lyrics, and the rest is history.

One day, I visited the store in Breadalbane and asked the owners for permission to take photos. They’ve kept the interior just as it was years ago. They even put Allan’s song on the stereo so I could have mood music. It was awesome.


The downtown heart of Breadalbane
Is alive and beating tonight,
But there's no big hurry at all,
No big shopping malls,
Just an old man who's gone past his time
Under the glow of the Clover Farm sign.

From "Downtown Heart of Breadalbane", Allan Rankin, recorded on the New Branches album, 1996

In the book, I’ll include information about the songwriters and their “stories behind the lyrics”. Ideally, there should be a CD compilation of all the songs in the book.

I started to work on the project by asking for lyrics from musicians who’ve written songs about PEI. Since then, I’ve taken many photos and assembled hundreds from which to choose.

Even as a child, I loved photography. Later I took it as an elective at university.

After taking photos, I can hardly wait to download them onto a computer. I get such feelings of excitement, pride and accomplishment when one turns out just right.

My interest in music goes away back too. I grew up in St. Martins, a little village in New Brunswick. On Friday nights, my relatives gathered at my grandparents’ house to play, sing and dance. As children, we all had to learn to play something. Now it’s incredible to reap rewards from that piece of my past.

The mixture of photography and music suits me perfectly because I love both. In fact, I’ve even found the inspiration to do a little songwriting myself. So far, I’ve written two songs: “When I Found You, I Found Me”, written for Rodney and being recorded by Texas Friends, and “Christmas on the Isle”. Charlie Hansen, another experienced musician, has put them to music.

Along the way, I also did the cover photography for Rodney’s latest CD, called Me and My Guitar.

As the weeks pass, I’m having a great time with the book project -- meeting interesting people, hearing wonderful music and seeing spectacular scenery.

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