Superior Sings

This is what Lake Superior looked like in Grand Marais on January 30..... taken just after the sun dipped below the horizon. I find that while Lake Superior makes a wondrous photographic subject year-round, it is in the winter that her true beauty shines. Superior can be an incredibly brutal and harsh place, as the conditions certainly were when I took this shot. It was about 5 below zero and the wind was coming in from the southwest, pretty much a sustained wind of 15 to 20 mph, with frequent gusts to 25 and 30 mph. I don't know what that equates to with the wind chill, but it is very cold.



When trying to think of a title for these images, I came up with "Superior Sings" from some of the lyrics from the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", which at that point in the song goes like this: "Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings....In the ruins of her ice water mansion...." I thought it was kind of fitting for the atmosphere of these photos.



(Above: Sunset and snow drifts on the Grand Marais shoreline)



After standing in the bitter cold wind to capture the above images a nice, hot pizza from Sven and Ole's was all I could think about :-) So, I went and ordered a pizza to go and while it was cooking I walked down the street and took a few shots of some of the downtown buildings. I was very happy with the way these turned out as well, as there was still some light left in the sky, making the shots more dramatic than they would have been if it were totally dark. I especially like how the upstairs windows of the Lake Superior Trading Post reflected the light in the sky. Another beautiful ending to another great day!

Gitchi Manido Giizis (Great Spirit Moon)

Gitchi Manido Giizis, or Great Spirit Moon, is the Ojibwe name for the month of January. I thought the term was a fitting title for this post, since the images depict the rising January full moon. These images were taken at Hollow Rock Resort in Grand Portage, just after the sun dipped below the horizon. Exposure times ranged from 2 to 10 seconds in length. There were decent-sized waves rolling up on the shoreline, which made for some interesting silky looks to the water resulting from the long exposures that were used. Enjoy!

18 below

Well, last night it got pretty cold..... I had about 23 below for a low at my house, but I heard of others who live away from the lake a few miles who had almost 30 below. Whenever it gets that cold there is steam over the lake the following day, which means I'm going to be up early taking pictures! Below zero, steamy mornings are some of my favorite conditions for shooting on the Lake Superior shoreline..... once you look at the images I'm sure you'll see why. The steam combined with the morning light makes for some very dramatic photos. Yes, the cold gets hard on the body after being out in this weather for a while, but again..... the pictures are worth it!

2 below and beautiful

After stopping at the store this evening to buy some groceries, on a whim I decided to take a quick drive around the Bay Road/Upper Road loop in the village, and boy was I glad that I did! As I rounded the corner onto the east end of Bay Road, I could see that the sunset was going to be quite a show over Grand Portage Bay. I pulled over, got my gear out of the back of the car, and walked down to the beach to wait for the sunlight to hit the clouds. It was a bit cold with the wind and -2 air temperature, but the pictures were worth it.

In the photo below, I first used my big camera to take a shot of the sunset, then set the LCD screen on the back of the camera so the picture that I just took would show on it. Then I took my little pocket point-and-shoot camera and took this picture:

Snowshoeing on Kadunce Creek

Today I went down to Kadunce Creek to do a little snowshoeing.... I had heard that Grand Marais had just gotten dumped on with snow.... 2 feet or more, depending on where you were at. In comparison, we only got about 3 inches in Grand Portage. As it turns out, Kadunce Creek was just outside of the area that got the majority of the snow but it was still a fun snowshoe hike. The creek was mostly frozen, with some open spots here and there. Its quite peaceful to be walking along with nothing but the sound of your snowshoes crunching through the snow with each step, and the sounds here and there of running water beneath the ice.

Pancake ice on Grand Portage Bay

Ice is finally forming on Grand Portage Bay..... seems like its a bit late this year. I look forward to this every year, as ice is one of my most favorite photographic subjects. The formations change every day, and you just never know from one day to the next what's in store for you. One of the neatest things about pancake ice is if there is a slight swell coming in off the lake, it makes some very interesting sounds as it wallows in the swells, the pieces of ice bumping and rubbing each other. To hear the sounds of the ice, visit the video clip gallery on my website: http://travisnovitsky.smugmug.com/gallery/4207197 and watch the clip from January 12.

Mid-winter fog

It's been really warm the past few days, too warm for January. Temps have been in the low to mid-30's. Rain is forecast for tomorrow. I'm not too happy to see all of our snow melting, but the fog today sure made for some interesting photographs. I headed up into the woods to shoot some images in a pine plantation not far from my home.....normally this is a difficult area to shoot with harsh contrasts in light, but the fog made it much easier.