Last month I was lucky enough to spend about 10 days on a vacation in BC with my parents. My mum was turning 60 so they planned to come up from Australia and I met them over there. We began our vacation with time in Vancouver, all while the World Cup was taking place. The energy in Vancouver was incredible, it was truly buzzing. We watched all the Aussie and Canadian games we could, wherever we could. We were at the top of Grouse Mountain and were even able to watch the Aussies in the cinema they have there!

After a few days we took the ferry from Horsehoe Bay to Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. From there we journeyed down to Victoria and stayed there for a few more days, using Victoria as a base to explore the island a little more.

A major highlight for me came towards the end of the trip. I really love planes and flying, so a bucket list item for me was to fly in a sea plane. I booked on for myself for the trip back to Vancouver from Victoria and it was awesome! It was a really weird feeling to be floating on the water, how it feels like when on a boat, but strapped in on a plane!

For this trip, I had a few goals for my photography:

Use only one camera, one lens, essentially to bind myself to the same constraints I will be giving myself on my upcoming Europe trip.
Only use film simulations only to reduce/remove the need of editing
No laptop, Ipad only for file management; sharing photos with family/on social media
To figure out a workflow that makes sense for travelling

Ultimately though, there was one main reason to bring a camera: to document and capture memories of this trip with family.

Some photos are purely just for me to be able to show my partner back home how something looked, or food we ate, etc. Some are of sights we saw that I endeavoured to capture in a more unique perspective.

Gear used:

Fujifilm XT-4, primarily using Fujifilm Natura 1600 & Acros push processed (b&w images) as my film sims
TT Artisans 35mm manual lens
ND filter

Our first evening together, we grabbed some dinner from the grocery store and brought it to a park looking out at Vancouver Harbour. All exhausted from our travels but so grateful to be spending time together in person for the first time in about two years.

Inside the market at Granville Island… so many wonderful colours, smells, textures. I couldn’t stop taking photos in here!

On a trail at Grouse Mountain. The image was actually taken upside down, the top half is water, a reflection. I wanted to play with the perspective and capture more of the sky, in the water.

Also at Grouse Mountain, at the lumberjack show. I had seen this before on previous travels, so I knew what to expect. I wanted to get some motion blur of the lumberjacks doing their thing/falling into the water. I knew if I slow down my shutter to do this, my photos would be way overexposed, especially in bright, midday sun. I brought an ND filter with me which allowed me to take a number of photos like this, with slow shutter, in bright daylight. Unfortunately this is a case where only having the one lens, one focal length made things a bit harder. A tighter frame would have been better, to cut out peoples’ heads. But also I was travelling and having fun, no need to get right to the front to take the perfect picture.

Again, Grouse Mountain, this time at the bird show. The birds were incredible. Again I used my ND filter to be able to slow down my shutter, to try and do some panning shots. It was incredibly hard, the birds were crazy fast. Still though, I kinda like this particular photo.

At Lynn Canyon in Vancouver. Again a slowed down shutter, probably about 1/4 of a second. No ND filter needed here as it was quite shadowy. I love how it smoothed the rushing water.

I’d seen people on the internet doing this and I wanted to try it. We were going in to the grocery store, and there was a classic car parked outside. Inside the store were lovely flower arrangements. So when we were done shopping, I snapped a picture of the flowers as the first shot in the double exposure, and went out to get the one of the car… but it was gone! Womp womp. I figured I would try it on our rental car and honestly, it makes the rental car look so nice, so whatever!

At the Beacon Hill petting zoo, in Victoria. Another place I had a blast taking photos. All the animals were so cute and the goats look funny. I like when things are in groups of three and these three guys were lined up nicely.

In a water taxi in Victoria! These little boats are so cute, again they made for fun subjects to take pictures of. But from inside, I wanted to take a picture that would be unique, show the inside of the boat and the view, from a different perspective, not just straight out the window. I changed seats and found this frame, through the steering wheel (what’s a boat’s steering wheel called?), and it worked! I just needed to wait for something to come into frame, and eventually, that’s what happened here.

Descending into Vancouver Harbour on the sea plane. I love this shot, as I said I love flying and planes, and here we have the view, frames by the cockpit. Keeping the horizon level (ish), you can really see the bank of the plane at the time. I like that you can also see the GIANT soccer ball for the world cup.

Possibly my favourite picture from the trip. This was taken at Shirley Delicious, a small cafe just out of the town of Shirley, on Vancouver Island. I had a FREAKING DELICIOUS brekky bun, the look and feel of the cafe was excellent and as we were leaving, folks were unloading these new, beautifully made picnic tables out onto the cafe patio. I don’t think I’d ever seen a brand new, fresh table before. Anyway, I round the corner and here’s this SICK truck with a whole bunch of these tables in the back. Chatted with the guy and got a couple of photos. With this film simulation, reds really pop, I love the tone. There’s a bunch of good red tones throughout these photos but this is the best example. It really contrasts against all the greenery.

Sooooo much beautiful nature on this trip. Was able to explore a decent amount of it and I have literally hundreds of pictures of trees, plants, shadows, textures. But this is one of my faves. I believe this one was taken near the Jordan River on Vancouver Island.

You’ll never guess where this was taken.
I found myself standing directly in front of the building, taking a picture. And it was fine of course, but then I realised I should look for a different perspective. I turned around and there were some nice flowers, so I crouched down behind them and snapped this. Boom, just like that, a more interesting photo, with more depth, colour.

Final thoughts:

Issues I ran in to regarding photography on this trip/ making this blog post:

storage space on ipad
I usually cull on Lightroom which also lets me change file names, but I was avoiding Lightroom useage
Trying to upload and cull hundreds of photos onto Google Drive was a pain/took ages/didn’t work
Ended finding a workflow that worked but did involve a pathway that included Lightroom
As I was already there, I did choose to make some small edits here and there on photos, primarily some cropping, levelling
So many photos to share here and I want to tell their stories and talk about the places. Possibly I need to include more frequent, shorter blog posts, while on the trip.

As I said, I have literally hundreds more photos and I won’t go in to every single one here, but I will share some below. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read through this and enjoyed any of my photos. As a thank you, use the code word REDTRUCK for a 25% discount on anything bookable through my website. Very limited quantities available.