Moving to the other side of the water completely changed my view of Vancouver. From North Vancouver, downtown became an almost continuous landscape of light—deep blue over the water and the city, punctuated by the warm, golden lights of the skyline. For a few minutes, Vancouver lay exactly between blue and gold.

In the afternoon, with pleasant summer temperatures, North Vancouver was on the agenda. Not by accident. I had consciously planned this part of the day this way because I wanted to look out at the downtown skyline and the harborfront from Waterfront Park in the evening—from a completely different direction than, for example, from Granville Island.

But with the change in location, it wasn't just the perspective that shifted. An entirely different photographic situation emerged.

With the previous shots, I had been working with the last light of the day. Here, it was the opposite. From North Vancouver, I was not looking toward the setting light. 

In front of me, it was becoming increasingly dark. The sky transitioned into a subdued blue-gray, the water took on the same color, and even the buildings of the skyline seemed to blend into this nearly monochromatic mood.

That is exactly what made me curious: What kind of image would emerge from this? The darker it got, the more the skyline detached itself from this blue-grey environment. The brightly lit towers added warm, almost golden accents, their reflections stretching far across the water and breaking the monochromatic calm.

Cool blue-grey and warm gold – two completely contrasting color worlds in one image. And then there was this tiny detail on the shore: a red warning light. Hardly more than a small dot in the vast skyline, yet this red, too, was reflected in the water.