Remembering the Fitzgerald

Every year on November 10 at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park the light is lit as a memorial to the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald was an ore freighter that sank in Lake Superior near Whitefish Bay during an intense storm on November 10, 1975. All 29 hands on board were lost. While a part of me has always wanted to visit Split Rock during the memorial lighting, I never saw it until this year. While I got there a little late due to a dentist appointment in Duluth (the lighthouse is lit at dusk, and I arrived about an hour and a half later), I did still get a chance to see the light sweeping across the lake, as they leave it on for a couple of hours after it is lit.

After watching the light for a while I met up with Jon Wood, a friend of mine (http://www.jonwoodphoto.com/) and together we decided to head up to Tettegouche State Park and try shooting some star trails over the rock arch that is on the Tettegouche shoreline of Lake Superior. Jon and I spent a couple of hours shooting a fantastic night sky over the arch. It was an incredible night to be out, there was no wind and the lake was as flat as a pancake. The image below is a 52 minute exposure of the stars over the arch.

3 nights, 3 challenges

Or, as I prefer to think of it, 3 opportunities! This tree is a maple tree that I like to call "The Ghost Maple", since (to me at least) the silhouette of the tree resembles a rather "ghostly" looking figure. Each year after the leaves fall I like to make images of the "Ghost Maple". When the leaves are on the trees the profile of the tree just doesn't stick out the way it does after the leaves have fallen. This year, I wanted to get some shots of the stars behind the tree. These three images represent 3 separate nights of shooting the tree. My original desire was to get a star trail image of the tree. On the first night, when I got to the tree the clear skies that were prevalent over Lake Superior were nowhere to be seen deep in the woods, and I had to deal with a very overcast sky. So, I took the opportunity to try and get a little creative with the lighting. I waited until the moon was up (of course, I couldn't SEE the moon because of the clouds, but there were some thinner areas of cloud where on occasion the moonlight would sort of come through) and I made some exposures with the tree illuminated from the brake lights on my car.



On the second night, the sky looked a little more promising for some stars. However, again when I got up to the tree the clouds had moved in a bit, although they were much thinner than the previous night. Star trails weren't going to work on this night, either... too many thin clouds... so instead I shot a high ISO "short exposure" image of the stars and the hazy clouds as the moon was rising in the distance.



Third night... I got what I wanted. Crystal-clear skies, not a cloud in sight. So, I lined up my composition, dialed in my focus, and locked the shutter down for a one-hour exposure. I had great fun each night I was up there, and I guess the whole point of this is that even though you may not get what you are hoping for, don't get too discouraged because you may end up with some neat images that you weren't expecting!

First image: 30 second exposure, aperture f4, ISO 1600.
Second image: 30 second exposure, aperture f4, ISO 6400
Third image: 1 hour exposure, aperture f4, ISO 100.

All three images were made with a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon EF 17-40mm lens.

November Moon

Tonight we had quite a treat... beautiful moonlight combined with fast-moving clouds, which makes for great photography! I couldn't think of a better place than the Spirit Tree to shoot the beautiful clouds and moonlight. Each of these exposures were a few minutes in length to accentuate the movement of the clouds. I hope you like them as much as I enjoyed capturing them!

Cloud Flames

Just a couple of quick images that I snapped on the way home from work today. As I drove over Mt. Josephine I spotted these clouds and couldn't resist pulling over to shoot them. Its not very often that you see clouds sweeping vertically through the sky! The color difference between the two images is simply representative of how much the light changed over a 10-minute time period.

Yes, it was still a good year for fall color!

(Above and below: Morning reflections on Turtle Lake)

Despite the frequent claims by many people that this was a "bad" year for fall colors, I was still able to find plenty of good color. True, I had to look a little harder than I normally do, but as long as you spent a lot of time out in the woods there was still plenty of autumn beauty to be found. This is a collection of fall color images taken at various times over the month of October. Enjoy!



(Below: Fallen maple leaves on Old Highway 61)



(Below: Vibrant Maples)



(Below: Sunlit Maples)



(Below: Maple Forest)



(Below: Maple Forest Abstract... Sometimes its fun to play around with shutter speeds and create some abstract images with an otherwise "ordinary" scene. This image is a 1/2 second exposure of a stand of Maple trees. I shot the image hand-held, without the use of a tripod and panned the camera vertically during the 1/2 second exposure).



(Below: Mountain Ash trees on Grand Portage Bay)

Great day in the woods

After shooting this morning's sunrise on Lake Superior I spent most of the remainder of the day exploring a remote section of Hollow Rock Creek. Hollow Rock Creek has a couple of really cool waterfall areas that are difficult to get to... no trails lead to these areas, so you have to bush-whack your way in and believe me, the going is pretty rough!



Once you get to the waterfall areas, however, the effort is well worth it. The beauty of Hollow Rock Creek is not an "in your face" kind of beauty... its beauty on a smaller scale. You have to look closely to see it, but once you start to look you soon find yourself seeing things you would have otherwise missed. The weather was perfect for this day of exploration along Hollow Rock Creek: overcast skies with very thick cloud cover. The cloud cover makes for a very even, muted sort of light that is conducive to shooting under the forest canopy. Bright sunny days are less desirable when shooting in the deep woods as the rays of sunlight create areas of extreme contrast that are almost impossible to expose correctly in a photographic image.



(Above: "Trapped" - A leaf that was stuck on the bottom of the creek)

Also, once most of the leaves have fallen off the trees, that doesn't mean that you should put your camera away and stop venturing out into the woods. It simply means that you should try looking other places to find your images... namely, along the ground! Its one of life's great pleasures to wander along a little creek like Hollow Rock and look for all these neat little things that catch your eye.



(Above and below: Swirling leaves and foam)





(Below left: Pothole along Hollow Rock Creek)

Stormy Morning

With brisk overnight winds coming from the southwest I thought it would be a good morning to go out and catch some waves hitting the Lake Superior shoreline. I went to the shoreline in front of my parents house, which has a rock ledge that extends out into the lake and is aligned such that when the waves are from the southwest they crash right over this ledge. It sure is fun sitting on the rocks and watching the waves pound the shore!