Here is another abstract image of ice along the Lake Superior shoreline. What really caught my eye with this particular ice formation is how the icicles reflected in the small pool below when the waves receded. Because I photographed this scene at 600mm with my telephoto lens in the early morning when there wasn't much light, I needed to use the 2-second timer on the camera. Believe me, it was a trick getting the shot! Trying to start the 2-second timer so it would open the shutter in between waves resulted in a mild bit of frustration. It took several attempts, but I did end up getting the shot I was looking for.
Now this is what I'm talking about! Thanks to some nice cold weather the past several days, ice has been forming along the shoreline again. We have had too many days this winter where the temperature was too warm for ice to form on the rocks at the water's edge of the big lake. The lines of ice that you see in the foreground of this photo were made by waves splashing on the rocks, then running back down towards the lake. In the cold air, a little bit of water from each wave freezes as it runs back downhill. Eventually, you end up with something that looks like what you see in this photo. In order to emphasize the lines in the ice, I used a very low camera angle by laying prone on the ground with the camera just a few inches off the surface of the ice.
It can sometimes be a harsh existence for wildlife along the shores of Lake Superior in the winter. That being said, this gull didn't seem to mind sitting on the ice floating in the Grand Marais harbor yesterday. It was a cold day. The temperature barely got above zero and it was pretty windy for most of the day. You would think that sitting on a piece of ice would not be that comfortable, but it didn't seem to bother this gull. There were actually quite a few gulls hanging out on the ice yesterday. I tried photographing a larger part of the group that was sitting on the ice, but my favorite shot by far was this image where I isolated one gull that was apart from the rest of the group.
I finally got out in search of some cool ice formations yesterday, and I found some! I love photographing ice, especially the infinite abstract forms it can take. Such as these tentacles that I found covering a rock along the Lake Superior shoreline yesterday. The way the light reacts with ice is endlessly fascinating. I love photographing these formations in the early morning light or the last light of day. The colors combined with the abstract shapes always make for an intriguing image.
This morning's sunrise from the lake walk section of the Superior Hiking Trail north of Grand Marais, MN. It was a bitter cold but beautiful morning!
I'm digging into the archives again, only this time I'm pulling a much more recent photo from just under a month ago. This is the Lake Superior shoreline a few miles north of Grand Marais. There is a short section of the shoreline that has had some incredible ice formations on it due to the spray from crashing waves. I caught this photo when driving home from Grand Marais one afternoon when the sky and the waves were just as interesting as the ice.
Last night before leaving work I checked the aurora forecast and it indicated that the aurora was going to be at storm level before too long. Naturally, this got me pretty excited as it has been a while since our last good aurora show! On the drive home I kept looking at the sky hoping to see some lights, but there was still a little bit of daylight left. Also, the almost-full moon was rising. Still, I figured with a kp index of 6.33, the aurora would be visible even over the moonlight. When I got home, I monitored the forecast site and kept an eye on the auroral oval image. The oval showed promise. It was pretty thick and starting to show some red, but it looked like it would be awhile yet before it was centered over northern Minnesota.
Around 10 PM it was starting to look REALLY good, so I bundled up and headed out to watch for the lights. The moonlight was very strong, making it quite difficult to see the thin green line of aurora that was in the sky. I kept having to take a picture to see if the green glow was still there. I sat on the Lake Superior shoreline about a mile from our house for an hour and a half in the minus 5 degree air, waiting for the lights to flare up. Unfortunately, they never did. I waited until just after midnight then decided to drive inland and try a different location. As I was driving inland along Old Highway 61 and passing by a beaver swamp I noticed a bunch of moose tracks all over the side of the road, coming off the swamp. I slowed down to check out the tracks. They were everywhere! The moose must have just wandered all around this area of the road and swamp.
When I looked back up at the sky, there were some bright wisps of green starting to burn into the sky. The lights were picking up! I was only about a quarter mile from where I planned to go, so I hurried over to that spot. Once I got there, I hurried to set up my camera and start making photographs. You never know how long these little flares of activity are going to last, and you certainly don't want to miss it! As it turns out, this flare-up only lasted about 15 minutes. The shot you see here is my favorite from that 15 minute time period. The temperature was minus 18 when I made this photograph, so I decided to title it "Eighteen Below Aurora".
