Jewel Tower Night

Description

I was driving home, camera gear still warm from a late afternoon photo shoot down the coast, when the sky began to shift, that unmistakable moment when day gives way to dusk, and everything softens into gold, then blue.

I was just passing through Broadbeach to Surfers Paradise, half-thinking about dinner, when I looked east and caught sight of them:
The Jewel Towers.

There they stood on the edge of Surfers Paradise, like three monoliths of glass, rising straight out of the sand. And right then, the dusk lights flicked on inside and outside, those subtle, cinematic glows that give the buildings an otherworldly feel.

It stopped me.

Without a second thought, I veered off the highway into a side street I barely knew, parked and grabbed my drone from the backseat. The light was perfect, and I knew this was one of those moments, brief, unscripted, but unforgettable.

Within seconds the drone was in the air, rising fast above the rooftops. As I turned it east, facing toward the ocean, my screen lit up with a view that made me catch my breath.

The Jewel Towers shimmered against the deepening blue, their reflections glinting off the glass like fire in the fading light. Behind them, the ocean stretched out in near-silence—deep navy at the horizon, fading into soft pastels near the shore.

Farther north, the lights of Surfers Paradise began to blink on, one by one, hotels, apartments, restaurants waking up for the night. But what drew me in was the contrast to the east. The last blush of sunset still lingered low on the horizon, casting a soft gradient across the sea. The city, already glowing, sat on the edge of that light like it was perched between two worlds, the natural and the made, the quiet and the alive.

I hovered for a moment, adjusting the angle just right, framing Jewel in the foreground, the coastline stretching beyond, and the Pacific wrapping it all in a soft evening hush. I snapped a series of long exposures, letting the lights paint themselves across the frame.

For a few golden minutes, the view felt like something out of a dream. Then the night deepened, the colours cooled, and I brought the drone home.

Driving off, I couldn’t help but grin. I’d set out to shoot one thing that day, but this, this impromptu east-facing flight above a glowing Surfers Paradise, was the real prize. The kind of moment you chase as a photographer…
And the kind of moment that, just sometimes, chases you back.