Gold Coast — Sunset Run
Surfers Paradise from the north end, the moment the sun drops behind the towers. Heavy impasto, hot sky, cold water.
Surfers Paradise gets shot from the sand about a thousand times a day and it always comes out the same: towers, water, done. We wanted the version you get from the north end, late, once the sun has dropped far enough that the strip goes warm and the water stops being blue.
Composed portrait from the start. The beach runs out of the bottom corner and the towers stack up the left, so your eye travels down the sand before it climbs the buildings — which is the order you actually see it in when you're standing there.
Where the sun sits
Low enough to lay a track straight down the water, high enough to still catch the tower glass. A few degrees lower and the whole frame goes orange and flat; a few higher and the reflection breaks up into nothing.
The people on the sand
Small, scattered, walking both directions. They are the only thing in the frame that tells you how big the rest of it is — cover them and the towers could be any height at all.
It's the Gold Coast people mean when they say the Gold Coast, rather than the one on the postcards.