Spring's busting out all over! Even if it's damp and rainy today, it's time to celebrate. Go enjoy drippy but beautiful cherry blossoms, or try balancing a raw egg before making your morning omelette, or if you're Wiccan, we wish you a happy Ostara. We architectural photographers in the Northern Hemisphere have another thing to celebrate: the return of direct light on north-facing elevations at dawn. Happy North Day to all our clients! Here's a north-facing elevation we photographed just after dawn a few years ago from the roof of a neighbouring building for Drahan Petrovic, project architect:

Between now and the Fall Equinox, the sun begins rising increasingly further north of due east and setting increasingly further north of due west, so that means that if your building faces north (and a lot of interesting buildings south of Burrard Inlet do, to maximize their views), we can actually get just a bit of light on that north elevation that, for six plus months out of the year, doesn't get direct light at all unless we bring out a pile of lighting gear and create our own.

So, if your building faces north, and you've been waiting for us to photograph it, it's time to start thinking about getting it photographed while Mother Nature makes it easy. If the elevation you want us to shoot faces northeast, you likely have a few more weeks to figure things out before first light becomes really usable (that's due to weather and, for Vancouver projects, the height of the North Shore mountains blocking true first light), so get planning.

And on that note, happy spring, everyone!