Each year I try to pick a selection of my favourite photos and write a little something about them. It’s a fun, if not challenging, exercise that allows me to review and reflect on all that’s happened in the past year. Below are 19 of my favourites from 2019. Do you have a fave? Let me know in the comments below if so! Fine art prints of these images and others can also be ordered online at: tjwatt.com/prints or by emailing prints@tjwatt.com. Have a great 2020!
Sunbeams burst through the ancient forests of Avatar Grove on a cool, winter morning near Port Renfrew. Moments like this are so ephemeral, and it felt a bit like chasing a ghost in waiting for the right light to appear. Summer is great season for camping and staying warm & dry but the rest of the year is when the dramatic weather and lighting really makes the forest shine. It brings me great joy to know that this once-endangered forest still stands today and is now enjoyed by tens-of-thousands of people from around the world each year.
A breathtaking view over Bedwell Lake in Vancouver Island’s Strathcona Park. The majority of my time is spent exploring endangered areas, so it’s nice every once and while to go hiking in a park and leave those worries behind. This particular weekend trip was a highlight of my last summer.
Mt. Baker looms along the horizon at dawn. I enjoy getting up to watch the sunrise, at least during the parts of the year when it happens at a reasonable time. It’s a great way to start the day and always a peaceful experience. On this cool morning, there weren’t any big flashy clouds but the sky took on a deep orange hue which stood in beautiful contrast to the dark blues of the ocean and hills. I love when landscapes line up in layers, each with a different texture and tone, as they did here.
A blue camas flower sits draped in delicate dew drops on a rainy spring day. If you’re ever stuck in a rut, a fun little exercise is to grab your camera and a lens and go for a walk to see what you can see (this works without a camera too!). On this occasion I chose my macro lens and hiked up to one of my favourite little nooks, Summit Park. Here you’ll find one of the last remaining vestiges of the once-great garry oak ecosystems that would have historically spread out across the Victoria region for as far as the eye could see. In spring, the ground bursts forth with colour & life, but with thousands of flowers to choose from, how do you pick the right one? With macro photography, I would argue the background is just as important as the main subject. Eventually I found one with a soft orange and green backdrop that seemed to perfectly compliment the colour of the purple petals.
In early July, the Ancient Forest Alliance teamed up with our friends at Expedition Old Growth to ascend, measure, and document the tallest Sitka spruce tree in Mossome Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory. The towering tree measures over 10 feet wide at the base and stands 246.5 feet or 75 metres tall – roughly equivalent to a 23-storey building! Besides being a comfy place for a nap, the carpets of moss and soil found high in the canopy also make ideal nesting habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet and host an abundance of arthropods, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Thankfully, this Sitka spruce is now protected with a one-hectare forested buffer zone.
A surfer carves a line across a perfect wave on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. The forecast on this day had been calling for big waves but also torrential rain. I took a chance and headed out in the late afternoon anyway and arrived just as the clouds parted for a half an hour, casting a warm glow over the horizon. Though it looks almost tropical, you can bet the water was only a few degrees above zero! It’s always fun to photograph surfing when I have the chance. Years ago, my focus was skateboard photography, so throwing some action into a landscape now and then is always a welcomed change.
Golden hour at Big Lonely Doug. Growing alone in a clearcut near Port Renfrew, Doug is Canada’s second-largest known Douglas-fir tree. Over the past 8 years, I’ve shot thousands of photographs of this tree but the cool thing about returning to a spot over and over again is seeing it in a variety of different seasons & conditions. I like the angelic glow and how you can faintly see the shadow cast before before the tree. Lonely Doug has such a distinct silhouette as well. In the world of trees, I’d say he’s quite the hunk.
Ancient forests are home to all kinds of wild and wonderful creatures, like this Northern Red-legged Frog. Perched here on the side of the Red Creek Fir, the world’s largest Douglas-fir tree, this little amphibian is enjoying the cool temperatures and moist conditions that BC’s coastal temperate rainforests provide. Listed as “Special Concern” under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, the Northern Red-legged Frog is one of many species that would stand to benefit from increased protection of BC’s ancient forests.
A giant pacific octopus peers inquisitively out of a tide pool at Port Renfrew’s Botanical Beach. This was the first time I’ve seen an octopus before and might be the only time. It actually walked right out of the water and looked me in the eye - an incredible moment to say the least! Afterwards, it slipped back into the water and swam in amongst the rocks, where it proceeded to change shape, texture, and colour until it was nearly invisible. Fully grown, these highly intelligent creatures can reach 16 feet long! The saying goes that ‘90% of life is showing up” - something I believe to be really true. So be sure to get outside whenever you have the chance, you just never know what you might find!
A male Roosevelt elk walks amongst sword ferns in an unprotected old-growth spruce forest in the San Juan Valley near Port Renfrew. Weighing up to nearly a thousand pounds, these charismatic creatures are the largest mammals on Vancouver Island and the world’s second-largest deer. Provincially, they are blue listed as a vulnerable or sensitive species because of their limited range and abundance, and concerns about loss of habitat, predation, poaching, and unregulated hunting - all the more reason to protect this rare, old-growth forest. To capture this image, I used a motion sensitive trail camera fixed to a tree. It’s always exciting coming back to check and see what has been recorded after leaving it out for months at a time! Still waiting on a cougar ;)
Water pours over the lip of the hidden waterfall at Sombrio Beach. Since this location has been photographed so many times, it can be a challenge to come up with new and unique ways of capturing the scene. On this occasion, I perched on small ledge and tilted the camera straight up, playing with the “Z” shape created by the fallen logs. I love how green and lush it gets in there during spring time as well. It looks like Hawaii but it’s our own island home!
January 2019 played host to a 'super blood wolf moon eclipse’. I like the sounds of that crazy name! It was a stunning sight to see and a beautiful reminder that we are all here floating in space. I like how the little stars show up when you view it in full as well. Twinkle twinkle!
As you may have guessed from some of my most recent photos, I LOVE storm watching. And one of my all-time favourite locations to do that is at Sombrio Beach near Port Renfrew. Here, the full, raw power of the pacific ocean is unleashed upon the rocky cliffs of Sombrio Point, resulting in explosions of epic proportions. No two waves are the same, so I’m content to sit and watch them all day long, come wind, rain, and salty spray. To ensure that you don’t die, it’s always important to know your limits and respect the potential dangers that these conditions present. However, when those risks have been accounted for as best as possible, it’s hard to think of an experience that makes one feel more alive!
Forever on the hunt to watch big waves, I slipped down to Sombrio at dusk one day to see what the swell was doing. The surf was big but the light was fading quickly and I almost turned around to head back to my van before darkness ensued. Instead, I decided to try something a little different - a long exposure with my telephoto lens looking down the coast. The result was a more painterly image. One that that I feel captured the essence of the cool blue mood along the misty coast that evening.
Water cascades down a mossy rock face in the autumnal forests outside of Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island. Fall is a great time to get out and shoot photos and the Cowichan region is home to some of the best displays of colour around. Capturing this image involved using a tripod, polarizing filter, and a long exposure. One of the things that I love about photography is that it’s just a great excuse to get out of the house and see what you might see. I hadn’t planned on visiting this waterfall that day but as luck would have it, I ended up there. Happy that I did!
This twirly arbutus at Witty's Lagoon in Metchosin is one of my all-time favourite trees. The spiral, in combination with the colour, reminds me of a painting. In fact, there is a local artist that I like who has painted these very trees at the lagoon. If you’re interested in checking the tree out in person, use this map and follow the Lagoon Trail to Whitney-Griffiths Point. I’m super grateful for having grown up in Metchosin and will always return to what I consider one of the most pastoral corners of planet earth!
Over the years I’ve started to capture before & after images that showcase the impacts of old-growth logging. As sad as it is to see, I think it’s one of the most powerful forms of conservation photography. To get an identical side-by-side shot takes some forethought and then follow up - something that I never look forward too. If you were to have only ever seen the stump, it would be hard to imagine the thriving world that once lived there. The particular scene above is from the slopes of Edinburgh Mountain near Port Renfrew, where logging company Teal-Jones continues to cut some of the finest remaining old-growth left on southern Vancouver Island.
Just last year, this enormous redcedar stood tall in the Caycuse Watershed in Ditidaht territory, a forest on par with Avatar Grove that I had hiked and explored while still intact. Today, the fallen giant and surrounding clearcut are a sombre reminder that, without bold and meaningful action by the BC government, even BC’s most spectacular old-growth forests face continued destruction. With over 90% of the valley-bottom forests already cut on BC’s south coast, we have no time left to lose.
At the beginning of 2019 I set a resolution to try and find a tree bigger than the biggest known in the country - the Cheewhat Giant. I figured if it’s out there, there’s a good chance it might be in a similar region to where the current one grows. While on a two day solo mission this summer, I came across this absolutely incredible western redcedar tree in an epic grove along Cheewhat Lake. I'm continually blown away by the beauty, scale, and grandeur of BC's coastal old-growth forests and the giants that remain hidden out there. Thankfully, this tree is protected within the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and while nearly 15ft in diameter, is still 5ft short of the Cheewhat Giant. The hunt for the new #1 continues!! 2020, here we come…
