Eloping in Tofino During Storm Season
Massive Pacific swells, moody skies, and the raw power of the winter coast. A storm-season elopement produces photographs that exist nowhere else in Canada.
Storms sound like the thing that ruins an outdoor wedding.
In Tofino they are the reason to come in winter.
A storm-season elopement makes photographs that exist nowhere else in Canada. The weather is not the obstacle. It is the entire point.
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November through February, towering swells break against the beaches, sea spray fills the air, and fast-moving storm skies produce a mood the calm summer cannot approach. A couple against that raw power is a small human moment inside an immense landscape.
Why the storm is extraordinary
November through February, towering swells break against the beaches, sea spray fills the air, and fast-moving storm skies produce a mood the calm summer cannot approach. A couple against that raw power is a small human moment inside an immense landscape.
The moody, diffused storm light is, paradoxically, beautiful for portraits: soft, even, atmospheric, none of the harsh contrast of bright sun. The rain slicks the beaches into mirrors.
Comfortable in the storm
A Tofino winter is mild, rarely freezing, but wet and wind-driven. Styled waterproof outerwear, the right footwear, and the shelter of the rainforest and the town's oceanfront resorts between sessions keep it comfortable. The famous resorts were built precisely for watching storms in warmth.
I plan the day with the flexibility to work in whatever the Pacific decides, file any permit, and both shoot and film it. Twelve years and 240+ couples in, the couples drawn to the elemental come home with the most powerful and intimate gallery of the year, two people against the wild winter coast.
