5 Pictures of April
April was quieter.
After the flood of photographs and footage from March’s Pacific Herring Spawn, I felt little desire to add even more to the editing backlog unless work demanded it. One of those assignments took me on a day trip to Cortes Island, but beyond that, most of the month was spent at the computer.
Still, these monthly recaps do not need to be quantitative, and I only need five images; I feel happy enough to write about and add to my yearly collection.
I) Low tide at Herriot Bay
2026 • April 7 | Quadra Island, BC
Reaching Cortes Island from Nanaimo is not difficult, but it does require careful planning to align ferry schedules, especially in the low season. Once on Quadra Island, we drove to the other side of the island to a small, quiet cove where we had an hour and a half to kill before boarding the final ferry to Cortes.
Herriot Bay was not unknown to me. I had stayed at the Herriot Bay Inn before, facing the little harbour tucked beside the freshly renovated BC Ferries terminal. I have always liked this quiet harbour. It feels like the perfect place to pause before sailing farther east through the maze of islands and inlets north of the Sunshine Coast. At least in my head, since I still find myself without a ship.
I would classify this photograph as a lucky iPhone frame. I was concentrating on the sailboat resting on the flats at low tide when a seagull flew into view, and that’s the shot, really. What’s interesting is that if I had made this on a full-frame camera at 100mm, I would have had a much shallower depth of field. But with the iPhone telephoto lens, it still gives you that compression between the different layers of the image, but at these distances, the depth of field remains deep, thanks to or because of (depending on your point of view) something that would normally require a tripod and focus stacking at a smaller aperture like f/11 on a 35mm camera.
All of that is to say that the iPhone can still render certain scenes in a genuinely unique way.
Shot on iPhone 17 Pro
II) Whaletown
2026 • April 7 | Cortes Island, BC
Another photograph made while waiting for a ferry.
With clear weather on our side, I launched the drone and flew over the nearby shoreline. I still cannot get over how much a drone opens up new ways of seeing and discovering the places around us. And while flying around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands requires training, restraint, and constant awareness of staying the f*** out of the way of manned aircraft, the reward can be remarkable.
For this photograph, I spotted the ferry early enough to position myself so I could catch it as it sailed into the bay, the kind of postcard moment.
Shot on DJI Mini 5 Pro
II) Aboard BC Ferry
2026 • April 7 | Cortes Island, BC
Aboard the ferry at last. The first of two, at least.
I do not know what it is about ferries that makes them so interesting to photograph. Maybe it is the emptiness of the seats, or the square windows opening onto nothing but deep blue water. I cannot remember a single ferry crossing where I spent the whole ride sitting down. Whenever I board one, I am usually out on the upper deck or, like that day, wandering the lower deck looking for something to photograph.
That is rarely my first choice, but since I was offloading footage, I had to stay below and force myself to pay attention to what was around me. These two rows of front seats reminded me, for some reason, of a small movie theatre. I sat there for a while, staring through the windows at the bow cutting gently back through Quadra Bay.
Shot on Kodacolor 200
IV) Seaplane from Nanaimo Yacht Club,
2026 • April 25 • Nanaimo, BC
I used to see this view every day. Our previous apartment faced the Nanaimo Yacht Club, and I still remember watching the sun rise above Protection Island while the seaplanes lifted out of the harbour. There were a million things wrong with that apartment complex, but the view was not one of them. I miss it often, especially now that I no longer have much of a view at all.
That day, I was mostly hoping to finish a roll of film and test the used EF 28mm f/1.8 I had just picked up, a lens I had wanted for quite a while. But I could not go very far out of town, so I thought I would return to my old neck of the woods.
Most of the images I made were little more than film-strip fillers, but I think this one made the outing worthwhile. It is far from perfect, and I still wish there had been something stronger in the foreground to answer the seaplane. But as I said, it is a view I miss, and photographing it one more time did not feel like a waste.
Shot on Kodacolor 200
V) Shack Island
2026 • April 28 • Nanaimo, BC
A tradition, with a twist.
When spring arrives in Nanaimo, I have a habit of spending a late afternoon at Pipers Lagoon, photographing the trees turning green again and the wildflowers blooming along the rocky shoreline. This year, I shot nearly an entire roll of Kodacolor 200 in the Canon Elan 7, switching between the 28mm and the 50mm. But this time I also had a new angle to work with: looking down.
I launched the drone several times through the evening, but the final flight was the one that mattered. As golden hour slipped into blue hour, I watched the moon rise and decided to catch the last remaining light on the colourful shacks. It was not an easy scene. Holding detail in the shadows without burning out the sky or drifting into a heavy HDR look, I do not enjoy, took some work.
It did require a stronger dose of dodging and burning than I usually like, but I am pleased with the final result, especially with how the water turned cobalt blue, leaving behind the more familiar Pacific teal of the daytime.
Shot on DJI Mini 5 Pro
Final Thoughts
And that was another quiet month of shooting, but also the point in the year when paid work begins to pile up, the schedule gets busier, and personal work starts to shrink.
For the next few months, I think I will need to remind myself to photograph more of the places where work takes me. Less planning dedicated day trips, and more paying attention to the everyday moments already in front of me. I want to keep at least one roll of film with me at all times, whether colour or monochrome, even if I end up making only one or two frames that day. Otherwise, I have a feeling summer will be gone before I have had the time to do much at all. And maybe that is always the risk once the busy season begins: that life becomes full, but strangely harder to notice.
What kind of images do you find yourself making when you no longer have time to go looking for them?
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