San Josef Bay

San Josef Bay is an amazing hidden gem tucked away at the wild northwest tip of Vancouver Island. The bay is home to a wide curving beach with a handful of tall sea stacks rising straight out of the beach, all backed by a dark rainforest that work together to create an incredible shooting adventure. The whole place is a joy to shoot, from the rugged sea stacks and their reflections in the wet sand at low tide to the anemones and sea stars in the rock pools to the sheer emptiness of a beach with the endless feeling bay stretching out in front of you. When the trail delivers you out onto the first beach, turn right and follow the river west along to reach the sea stacks and, just past those you will find a quieter second beach you can only get to at low tide. The shooting options are endless here: you can set up low to catch the towers mirrored in the wet sand, tuck a rock pool into your foreground, or when the tide is out you can wander among the stacks to shoot them close up and sometimes even get right into the sea caves. A versatile kit will be useful here, allowing you to spend your time experienting with a wide variety of shooting styles. A standard 24-70mm covers the beach and stacks nicely, a wider lens leans into those foreground reflections and cave shots, while something longer lifts a single tower out of the group. The beach faces the west out to the Pacific, so late afternoon into sunset is the perfect time to be here. The sun dropping behind the water and warm light spreads across the sand with incredible colours. Ideally you should build your whole visit around low tide, since that is what opens up the stacks, the caves and the second beach and if you are lucky low tide and sunset will overlap. Getting here takes some advanced planning. First it's a long drive on rough active logging roads west of Port Hardy followed by an easy, flat 2.5 km walk through big old growth trees, and it is remote enough that you share the coast with bears and wolves, so stay aware of your surroundings while hiking and shooting. Beach camping is allowed if you want to stay for sunset or experiment with astrophotography. A permit and a camping fee is required a head of time. Although this location is remote, it is definitely worth the effort! (San Josef Bay, British Columbia, Canada)