Angelina and I have been Instagram friends for many, many years but we never met until this year, in New Brunswick, at the Bouctouche Dunes. Despite the fact that we lived an hour apart from each other in Ontario for the entire time we’ve known each other, we inexplicably never met, and then did it in a whole other province instead.
Angelina is one of the most creative people I know, constantly leaking the contents of her brain all over her Instagram for the world to see. She often conceives, creates, and implements everything on her own without any outside help, and does an amazing job. She’s going to be very upset I just said something nice about her, because our time on Instagram is spent almost exclusively busting each others’ balls.
How good is this, right?
This was my first trip back to the Maritimes since 2018 (thanks, COVID!), and I got to explore New Brunswick a little more than I had before.
The day we chose to make photos had chaotic weather, but we were committed to hitting the beach regardless of what happened. When I picked up Angie to head to the beach, the first thing she said to me when she got in the car was, “You have really small ears.” Strangely, that’s an observation that a few other people have made in the past as well.
Anyway, we headed to the Bouctouche Dunes as the locals call it, though it’s officially named The Irving Eco-Centre: La dune de Bouctouche, which is too much of a mouthful. Though the Irving family is by far Canada’s most evil living group of people (Google it), they occasionally do some decent things, like the protection and restoration of this 12km sand dune.
Because it’s just a thin sandy spike that juts out into the ocean, the dune gets knocked around pretty good whenever there’s a storm, and is always changing shape. We stayed close to the entrance but I hope to go back and explore the whole dune one day. It’s definitely my new favourite beach in the Maritimes. It’s easy to get to, free to enter, and the water is warm and relatively calm.
When we first arrived, the weather was… miserable. It varied from a fine but ever constant mist of sea spray to light rain, with dark clouds all around us. We took full advantage and Angie hopped right into the wet muck immediately:
Just when we thought we’d have to endure being miserably moist for the entire length of our Bouctouche Dunes photo shoot, the clouds parted and gave us some glorious sun. Being mid-afternoon in August, though, the sun was still far from being at its most beautiful golden hour self. We hid from the sun under the boardwalk for a quick shot:
Then it was time for an outfit change. Angie put on this long black dress (she’s great at thrifting too) and we took full advantage of the boardwalk beams as the sun got stronger and stronger, backlighting Angelina.
This trip was the first time I put my new Nikon Z 6II (check price on Amazon) through its paces. Everything here was shot with the Nikkor Z 85mm ƒ/1.8 S lens (check price on Amazon). They make a great combo and I’m glad I’ve ditched the DSLR world for good. I’ll have more thoughts on this in some upcoming posts, for the photography nerds.
Because the sun was so strong at this point during our photo shoot, I had to scope out a shady area and found one quite quickly. I walked up to the elevated portion of the boardwalk and aimed down at Angie, lying below me on the mossy rocks. The boardwalk and attached building created beautiful open shade that was perfect to highlight the details of the rocks and seaweed. The black dress and Angie’s pale skin made for an excellent contrast.
Angie has been in the industry a long time and worked with a huge variety of creatives. It was really heartwarming when she posted images from this photo shoot and said about me that, “…he’s actually very nice and professional and one of (maybe 3) male photographers I am willing to personally vouch for”. There are no compliments I’m happier to hear than ones like those.