Comox Valley Wall Art and Fine Art Photography Prints

The Comox Valley is quiet in a way that surprises people on their first visit. On a weekday morning at Goose Spit, the strait is flat, the Comox Glacier holds the western skyline, and there might be one other person on the beach. The Valley sits on the east side of Vancouver Island, with Mount Washington half an hour up the highway, Tofino three hours west, and the wilderness of Northern Vancouver Island a couple of hours further up. I've lived here for eight years, and after enough travelling in between to make the comparison, I haven't found another place that puts this much variety inside an hour of itself.

I've lived in over a dozen places and travelled enough of Europe, Canada, and Asia to make a fair comparison. The Valley is where my wife Junli and I chose to raise our kids, and I'm still not looking elsewhere.

The work in this gallery comes from a handful of places I keep returning to. Goose Spit is the long sandspit that runs out toward Comox Harbour, rarely crowded even on clear summer mornings. Kye Bay sits a few minutes north with a quieter shoreline. Seal Bay Nature Park is forest and tidal flats on the east side of Courtenay, with trails that meet the strait through second-growth Douglas fir. Nymph Falls Nature Park sits inland on the Puntledge River, where the water is clean enough that people swim there in summer. Comox Harbour at first light is fishing boats, sailboats, and the occasional float plane. None of these places get crowded the way the mainland does.

The Valley changes with the seasons. Winter brings frost down to the high-tide line at Goose Spit, and Mount Washington gets enough snow that the snowshoe trails open by mid-December. Fall is when the Puntledge runs full and the salmon return. Summer is the swimming season at Nymph Falls and the long evening light. Fall is when I shoot the most, the light lower for longer and the weather turning interesting. Eight years in and I haven't run out of new angles on any of it.

The Valley is the reason my alarm goes off at five most mornings is so I can get out and experience it. Late one April I drove out to Nymph Falls before first light, parked at the trailhead, and walked the path down to the river in the dark. The Puntledge was running clear and cold under the falls, and the first light came up slowly through the trees over the next hour. I made about forty frames. The trail back was empty all the way to the car, and the drive home is fifteen minutes.

Comox Valley wall art from from this gallery are available in matte paper, metal, acrylic, and framed finishes, in sizes from small-wall to large. Everything ships from a Canadian printer, with separate USA fulfillment if you're shopping from the States.