Over the holiday break, I was able to get out to shoot a few Vancouver sunrise and sunsets. I recently found a great program called The Photographer’s Ephemeris the can help you plan your landscape shots before the actual day. This amazing program allows you to see where and when the sun and moon rises and sets. It integrates google maps to allow you to plan these rises and sets relative to different landmarks. It can definitely come in handy to help with your compositions. The panorama was taken during the shortest day of the year. Typically, the sun would rise in the east and sets in the west. But on the shortest day of the year, the sun actually rises south east and sets south west. Because of this, I was able to get the sunrise and downtown Vancouver in a composition that only happens over a span of several days during the winter time. This panorama photo was taken from the Lion’s Gate Bridge. Using the Photographer’s Ephemeris software, I planned it such that the sun would rise right above the cranes. The nice warm glow of the sun casts warm reflections off the skyline of Vancouver and illuminated the Stanley Park seawall in the foreground. I’m very happy with the way the image turned out! 

– throwback to january 2012