Windmill Sunset

I always thought that I made a trip to Andrew Haydon Park at least once a year. And indeed, when I pulled into its parking lot at sunset on Wednesday, I thought it hadn't been very long since I had last stopped in for an evening photo shoot.

It's been more than two years.

Granted, DW and I passed by the park, along Carling Avenue, a few months ago on our bikes, as we headed from Britannia on our way home. But we only passed the entrance to the parking lot and didn't actually enter the park.

I like to visit Andrew Haydon Park for sunset. It's a great spot for photography, as years of photos on this blog have shown.

I had met up, earlier in the day, with a couple of my friends from our days in journalism, in college. We've known each other for nearly 40 years and try to get together at least once a year, though the pandemic made us miss a couple of years.

We had dinner on a patio near Pinecrest and Iris, and after a few hours, we said goodbye and headed our separate ways. My initial plan was to simply drive home, but when I saw the sun hanging low in the sky, glowing a peachy orange, I knew I wanted to capture it.

Sadly, I didn't have a D-SLR with me, but the best camera is the one you have on you, and I always have my smartphone with me. And I only had about 10 minutes or so until sunset.

Andrew Haydon Park was the closest place that I could think of to capture the fading light.

I was able to park next to the path that takes me to the most popular spot that I visit for taking sunset photos. It's opposite the pond from the little windmill, and I like how I can get both a silhouette and a reflection of the trees and windmill, with the sky also reflected on the water.

I took a couple of photos at this spot but then decided to get closer to the windmill. There were only a few clouds in the sky but luckily many of them were close to the horizon, in front of the sun, which itself was already obscured by trees in the distance. I thought that I would get some interesting colours in the sky as sunset turned to blue hour, and I wasn't wrong.

I took a few more pictures before heading home, before the darkness took over.

Timing was everything, and everything about that evening, from being with my friends, making my way to the park, capturing sunset photos, and getting home with still a smidge of light was perfect.

You can see a couple more photos from my stop on my Instagram page.

Happy Friday!