We sure have had a lot of fog this summer! Thanks to the cooler temps overall this year, Lake Superior has not warmed up as much as it normally would and that means that we've had quite a bit of fog. When we have had warm days, the warm air mass coming from land clashes with the cooler air mass over the lake and creates fog. It seems we've had more foggy days than not this year. In honor of that phenomenon, I'm sharing this photo from earlier this summer. This photo was taken on June 27th of this year and shows a blanket of fog rolling over the top of Hat Point in Grand Portage.
For the past two days a Great Egret has been hanging around in the swampy lake behind our house. Last night and again this morning I watched as this beautiful bird walked around in the marsh and caught minnows from the lake. I wonder how long it will hang around?
The other night while my friend Roger was visiting we headed down to the Spirit Tree to enjoy the quiet evening and the incredible view of the star-filled sky. It was in this location where roughly a year ago I asked Jessica to be my bride, so it was nice to visit the spot again and think about the memories from a year ago, as well as the memories made since then. The beauty of the night was perfect: not a cloud in the sky, barely a whisper of a wind and the temperature was ideal. We sat down at the tree for a couple of hours and gazed at the sky. Every now and then a Perseid meteor would streak through the sky, remnants from a meteor shower that peaked a few days before. I was setting my camera up for a long star-trail exposure when Jessica climbed up and sat down on this rock for a better view of the tree. It just so happened that where she sat was a great spot for a shot of her gazing up at the tree. I asked her to hold still for 30 seconds while I recorded this exposure. It is my favorite shot of the night, even better than the 45 minute star-trail exposure that I made (which also turned out quite nice, but not as nice as this!).
Last night we headed out to try and do some photography of the annual Perseid meteor shower. For about the past week we have been seeing quite a few meteors streaking through the sky each night, but last night was supposed to be the "peak" of the shower. We stayed out from about 10:30 PM until 3:00 AM and while we did see a lot of meteors, it didn't seem to be quite as many as last year. The view of the Milky Way Galaxy is what really stole the show. We started off our evening at Paradise Beach just south of Judge Magney State Park and the view of the Milky Way over Lake Superior was tremendous. As we sat and enjoyed the view we heard wolves howling off in the distance. A couple of hours later we packed up and headed to one of the fire towers in Grand Portage. When we got there, however, a very large cloud bank was moving in from the west and we were only able to get a few shots in before the Milky Way was completely obscured by the clouds. In this photo you can see the edge of the cloud along the bottom of the photo. I thought it made for a pretty interesting image to show that cloud advancing over the Milky Way with the fire tower in the foreground. It was a fun night outside, and to go along with hearing the wolves we also saw a pine marten and a small rabbit, both of which ran down the road in front of us at different times. So, not only a good night for stargazing but also a good night for wildlife!
Well, I am still without my camera (going on two weeks now), but it is in transit and should be here in 3 more days. I have also been busy preparing for my upcoming photo exhibition at the Johnson Heritage Post in Grand Marais, MN. Those two factors mean that I essentially have not had any new photos to post from the last two weeks. So, here is one from 2006 that I would like to share. This was a lightning storm that hit in the middle of the night and woke me up from a deep sleep. I actually shot this photo from my open bedroom window. The storm and the lightning were VERY close, so I didn't want to risk going outside. As it turns out, the best lightning was happening directly over my driveway which was perfectly visible from my upper-level bedroom window. I opened the window, popped the screen out and set up my tripod. For the next half-hour I had a blast capturing photos of the lightning. This is not the "best" shot of the night, but it is a favorite. I will have a print of the "best" shot on display at my upcoming show. Be sure to check it out, the show runs from August 17th to September 8th!
I haven't been posting many pictures lately. My apologies to those that might be missing my posts. I have been busy going through a selection process to determine which photos I want to display in my upcoming "Visual Stories" exhibition in Grand Marais. Also, I have been without my camera for the past week! It turns out it got a little too wet during my last outing (remember the lightning photo at the Spirit Tree from a week ago?) and would not let me shoot anymore. I was getting an "Error 30" message and had to send it in to a Canon Service Center. I should have it back sometime this week.
In the meantime, here is a photo from this spring. This was taken at Middle Falls on the Pigeon River in Grand Portage State Park. The water just above the falls has many areas where the flow is silky smooth, which makes for some very intriguing abstract images when shooting with a telephoto lens. Another interesting thing is that the water here often nicely reflects the colors of the sky. On this particular day there was some blue sky along with patchy clouds and you can see both reflected here in the water.
Jessica and I were kayaking on the Pigeon River the other day when we had an incredibly fun experience with an Otter family! We were exploring the small islands in the wide part of the river just downstream from the rapids below High Falls. Jessica was paddling ahead of me and I was looking down a channel between two of the islands when I heard Jessica say in a loud whisper "There's otters right over there!" I looked and sure enough, not more than 25 feet off the bow of her kayak, a family of otters was swimming around against the bank along the side of the river. I slowly paddled over to get a closer look. They didn't seem bothered by us at all, probably because they are used to boats in this section of the river (it is a popular area for local fishermen). We watched them for a minute or two then realized that there was one otter that was a lot smaller than the others. The little one was adorable as he/she bobbed up and down in the water, trying to get a better look at us. We enjoyed their company for about another 10 minutes then they all swam off down one of the channels in between the islands. We were glowing from the experience as we paddled back to the boat landing :-)
