Lighthouse Photowalk

Yesterday while some people attended the #twestival event I had plans to head over to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver for a photowalk with the members of No Compacts Allowed. The idea was to meet up at 4PM and go for a little walk with the target goal to reach Atkinson Lighthouse before the sun began to set. The photowalk consisted of Scott, Lanh, Chris, Victoria, myself. Peter and his wife showed up at a better time as did Jeremy and missed me getting everyone a bit lost. I thought it would be cool to do a bit of the trail down to the lighthouse that loops around along the shoreline, but we unfortunately took the wrong path which would have lead us to the Seven Sisters.

We turned around and headed back towards the parking lot as we decided to just head directly down to the lighthouse and not wander around the forest. The first view of the lighthouse is near the private residence of the caretaker. There is no public access to the lighthouse itself, but if you know the area there are some pretty cool vantage points nearby. Though by far, the best view of the Atkinson Lighthouse (without being on the water) is at the West beach trail, out on the rocks when the tide is lower.

Lanh had brought Chris and Victoria to model for us (or perhaps him but I jumped in on the action too).

The use of reflectors, difusers , flashes shot through an umbrella added to the mix and it was cool to see them being used.

As the sun began to set Jeremy brought out his 2 flashes and remote triggers. I thought using them in the way we did was pretty cool, and that turning the photos into HDRs were even cooler. I need to learn how to work flashes and lighting better I think!

The above photo of Victoria was processed in Photomatix, tone mapped and then over in Photoshop it was desaturated and lightened up a bit. The photo of Jeremy above that, is right from the camera. I wanted to see the effect of the image post processed and I think both turned out neat.

Overall it was a great 4 hours of hanging out on the rock taking photos and trying to learn new things.

Of course the whole reason why we went to the this location was to get the sunsetting and as the sun dipped below the moutains the glow was pretty impressive. I’m looking forward to the next photowalk which will be a nighttime one. There is talk about going out to one of the corn mazes though. If you’re interested in coming out on a photowalk, stop by the No Compacts Allowed (that’s not really a rule) Facebook group and join!

You can check out my other Atkinson Lighthouse Photowalk photos over on Flickr as well!