Iona Beach Regional Park. This must have been my third time there, it’s a very isolated and calm place near the Vancouver Airport.
I decided to head there just before sunset because I knew clouds were forming up, and rain was going to come later in the day. I knew I had a chance to get some nice layers of clouds with the possibility of that beautiful orange sunset. When I got there, there were huge godrays coming from the sun setting behind the clouds, it was beautiful and powerful, but at that point the light was too strong for my taste. I then started to walk along the marsh trying to find some compositions, I tried a few different things with some plants in the foreground and the godrays in the background, but I found it to bee too busy for what I was looking for.
After I continued to walk along the marsh, towards the airport, I spotted a Heron. I didn’t have any long lens, all I had on me was a Pentax Takumar 135mm F2.5. I tried to be as quiet as I could to try to capture it.
After I took this first photo I tried to move in closer, but I ended up stepping on a stick and the Heron flew away to safety.
Those things happen, it’s good not to get discouraged, I kept walking towards him a bit further away this time, not realizing that I had reached the wet part of the marsh, and I was definitely not wearing the proper gear for that. I ended up going further from the water, really close to the airport fence, and I saw this really nice huge log of wood, to me it looked like the log was watching the sunset just like I was, I set up camp again, grabbed my Zeiss 24-70mm F4, and tried to composite the photo in a way that would show how serene the evening was but at the same time showing the absolutely stunning orange colors bouncing off the sun through the stormy clouds over Vancouver Island.
I’ll leave you with the last photo of the day, I had already packed up and walked back to my car, started driving back because the light was dying. As I drove past the airport I saw this really cool spherical tower, so I stopped grabbed my camera and tripod for a quick last shot, thanks the beautiful colors of blue hour and the emptiness of the airport, I thought that would be great for a more minimalist photo. I really like this image because of its simplicity.