Visiting Vancouver – Best Places to Photograph

There are many terrific photo opportunities in the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia.  Vancouver has a beautiful cityscape, great harbor views, lighthouses, plus close access to many natural areas and parks.

Canada Place

Here are some of my favorite areas to photograph in Vancouver.

Stanley Park.  A large 10,000 acre part located right off the West End of Vancouver.  There is so much to see and do in Stanley Park that I've dedicated a separate blog post to it.

Vancouver by Air.  Within the first 3 hours in Vancouver, we were taking off on a sea plane for an aerial tour of Vancouver.  The sea plane ride was a bit expensive but worth it.  The flight cost was $160 per person.  However, we had the entire plane to ourselves.  You can lower the cost if other people book the flight with you. The sea plane ride from SeAir provided a 20 minute aerial tour of Vancouver.  I got some good photos of both the city and harbor from above.  The concierge at the Marriott Pinnacle was terrific.  She arranged for our Sea Plane ride and gave us ideas and directions for everything.

Olympic Cauldron

Harbor front by the Convention Center.  This area has great views of the port, Canada Place, and the skyline of Northern Vancouver.  Also don't miss the Olympic Cauldron and the Digital Orca Statue by the convention center.  Try shooting an ultra wide angle of the Olympic Cauldron with the city in the background. The railing by the orca statue is a great place to take photos of sea planes taking off and landing.

Gastown.  Gastown is a trendy area for shopping and dining.  Gastown was a rough area that the city is working to clean up.  When we walked through the area, it had its share of homeless and people looking for hand outs.

One of the main attractions in Gastown is the Steaming Clock that steams and chimes every quarter hour.  You can also do some neat street photography in the trendy areas of Gastown.  Gastown is a short 10 minute walk from the downtown hotels near Canada place.

Granville Island Public Market.  The market on Granville Island is a large inside market with fruit, vegetables, meats, seafood, food stalls and more.  It's a great place to photograph produce, fish, and market activities.  There are also some nice compositions  of the harbor and cityscape around it.  Take the False Creek Ferry back to the Aquatic Center for more harbor shots and then check out sunset beach.  There are rows of logs set up on sunset beach to view the setting sun.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Gardens

Chinatown.  The Chinatown area of Vancouver is shrinking as much of the Asian population has moved to the Richmond area.  There still some good photo ops in Chinatown:  the welcome arch, Chinese shops and markets, and the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese garden.  This small quiet garden has some great compositions.  The calmness of the garden makes you slow down and focus on the compositions in the garden.

While the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese garden has beautiful compositions, I received an email from them on one of my photographs that they reserve the rights to all photographs and video taken inside the garden.  So if you plan on using the photographs for a commercial use, avoid this garden.   

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