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0001807-2I’m up in Tofino, British Columbia, on the Pacific side of Vancouver Island doing a workshop for Santa Fe Photography Workshops. This is one of my all-time favorite places to teach and photograph because there are so many subjects to shoot and all the locations are easily accessible and close to town. Within 30 minutes of our base there are bears prowling the shoreline for crabs, spectacular old-growth forest with some cedars almost 2000 years old and 12′ across, great working harbors full of old boats and piles of gear, wild beaches (one over 10 miles long!) and the best tide pools I have ever seen.

Today I am going to scout the tide pool- make sure the winter storms haven’t changed things too much and or that access hasn’t changed. I may take a few pictures as well- the density of seastars and giant green anemones is in places astounding. And most of the time, rather than perching precariously on some jagged, slippery rocks to get a photo, here in Tofino you get to sit on comfortable sand!

I did photography workshops in Olympic National Park for 22 years straight back in the day but stopped doing them because many of the sites had become degraded. Tofino is the Olympics 50 years ago but with bigger trees, more colorful tide pools and better chocolate chip cookies!