As those living in Vancouver will already know, we’ve once again been subject to a relatively rare temperature inversion that has pushed cloud down over the heart of the city, leaving it shrouded in thick fog.

I captured a beautiful shot of this when it last occurred in January, and I was eager to have another attempt. This remains a very difficult shot to take unless you live high up in West Vancouver, as the conditions are very difficult to judge. Once again, I made five trips to the viewpoint to capture the elusive conditions, with other trips resulting in either the city being completely covered in fog, or on one occasion, finding I was still in fog by the time I reached the viewpoint itself!

Finally, the fog dropped low enough for the Vancouver buildings to start to appear, and I was able to make two successful trips, last night and this morning, to capture the sunset and the sunrise. This shot was taken just before 7:00am, well before the sun started to rise, but with the early dawn light causing the sky to glow above the city. On this occasion the Lions Gate Bridge was almost completely covered by thick, fluffy cloud, but the iconic Vancouver buildings were visible.

My very sincere thanks go out to two friends who accompanied me and who both lent me some very expensive and high-quality telephoto lenses, especially as I have since discovered that the photos taken with my own telephoto lens have some very serious flaws which suggest that it’s suffered an internal failure of some kind.

This is a four-photo panoramic image taken at 200mm, each from a four second exposure.