Welcome to the aarbon90 journey. I’m Aaron Vaz, a Landscape and Astro photographer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Like many photographers, I picked up the art of photography by accident. It was 2009 and Best Buy had their Boxing Day sale. Our family was looking for a camera and there was Canon Rebel XSi kit for sale. We picked the Rebel up, just to get better quality photos during our vacations. For the first month, the camera was stuck on AUTO (yup! that flash popping up auto mode) and I didn’t like how the photos would turn out. Thus the curiosity and search to get better photos began. Many long hours on the 2010-2011 internet to find out how the camera worked (aperture, ISO etc), was what drove me.  I’d take that camera with me everywhere and try the tips and tricks I learnt from the trusty internet, and slowly but surely I started liking the results and all it took was moving off AUTO!  Thus began my photography journey.

The more I learnt and shot the better the photos became – who knew practice makes perfect. For the next couple of years, I’d try taking pictures of everything and trying different photography genres, but landscapes and the great outdoors became as I call it, my ‘zen’ zone. It’s just something about being out in mother nature with my camera, that brought me this inner peace. Through university, every time I was stressed, I’d go out and shoot some photos. As I graduated university and started my professional career, I’d be exhausted after the 9-5 and the photography spark just dwindled. For about 4 years, my camera just collected dust as I’d never take the camera out. I had convinced myself that if I ever need to shoot anything, I have my phone in my pocket. In 2017, I took a trip to India for a friend’s wedding and I even left my camera at home, and barely took any photos on the trip (Still got #RAGRETS!).

Fast forward to a year later to December 2018, where my sister and I planned a 11 day impromtu road trip from Toronto to Grand Canyon and back (One of the best road trips I’ve ever been on, I highly recommend it :D). I made it a point to take my camera with me on this trip and I’m so glad that I did. It was in Boulder, Colorado and something about being in the mountains, that lit that photography spark in me again. The spark at the time was really small as I was still working my 9-5 and would still be exhausted after work, but the camera would now make an appearance on all our road trips.

Then 2020 happened and I got laid off right at the beginning of the global lockdown. I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. This is when the photography spark just grew into a big fire within me. I found myself editing and attempting to post on Instagram almost everyday. Yup, the more I did it the better I got (lol, yes yes, practice makes perfect). 2020 was the year for new adventures on my photographic journey. With all this extra time on my hands I could finally go and shoot things I really wanted to shoot; everything from late night Milky Way chasing and getting home at 8am to 2am starts to catch sunrises during Fall. So here is a mini showcase of my adventures so far. Stay tuned as there’s a lot more to come 😀