Last sunrise of 2012 in Grand Portage on the Lake Superior shoreline. I had to scramble to get to this spot, mostly because I didn't give myself enough time to get there to scope it out before the sun rose. Luckily, I am quite familiar with this shoreline and know that there are some nice rocks there. What I wasn't expecting was this really neat cap of ice covering this rock, with icicles hanging down on the side facing the lake. It made for a really nice foreground.
I hope everyone has a wonderful, fun (and safe!) time ringing in the new year!
We've got ice! I'm in heaven once again :-) Ice in all its infinite variations is by far my favorite thing to photograph in the winter season. This morning I got out along the shoreline to photograph some cool ice formations on some small cliffs just a few miles from my home. The ice in this particular location is formed from the Lake Superior waves as they splash against these rocks. The water drips down the rock, freezing as it runs down the surface of the cliff. Another interesting thing about ice is that it is constantly changing. It never looks the same from one day to the next!
We finally have some ice along the shoreline! This winter in Grand Portage has been pretty mild thus far, so several days ago when it started to cool off I got excited about the possibility of having ice along the shoreline again. All it took was a few days of colder weather and "voila!" there is once again ice forming! This photo was made along Grand Portage Bay just about a half-mile from my home.
Here is another "oldie"... lately it seems I've been more interested in digging through old photos rather than shooting new ones. However, the weather recently has been bringing us cooler temperatures so hopefully there will be some NEW ice to photograph soon :-)
In the meantime, I bring you this shot from March of 2007. We had a lot of ice that year, and some rather unique things happened. We had ice extending out from shore quite a ways and a big wind storm came up, crushing up the surface ice. As the ice rolled around in the waves it was shaped into these round-ish "boulders". Then, the waves flung the ice boulders up onto the shoreline. Most of the beaches in Grand Portage were covered with ice similar to what you see in this photo. It was pretty surreal... and FUN walking along the shoreline and taking in this winter wonderland! This post comes to you on Christmas Eve, so I'd like to wish you all a wonderful and very Merry Christmas!
Lake Superior is an amazing subject, one that I never tire of photographing. The Big Lake has a seemingly infinite number of moods, but one of my favorites is when the waves are kicking up like they were last night. Shooting the waves as they break over the near-shore rocks is endless fun. I made about 60 exposures of the waves in order to get this one shot that I really like. All the others, while nice, just didn't have the right amount of whitewater surrounding the rocks. This one was the best of the bunch, at least for what I was looking for.
From today's walk in the woods. I love winter for many reasons, and one of those reasons is the snow makes it easier for us to see what the animals have been up to. Today I found these raven tracks... they were in the middle of an opening in the woods, beginning with the two tracks in the lower right. Apparently this raven landed, then hopped on both feet a few times before beginning to walk. It sure was a fun find :-)
Today felt more like a spring day than a December day, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees and rain falling all afternoon. The mild day made for a pleasant walk in the woods (well, before the rain started it was pleasant). I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and took a walk to High Falls on the Pigeon River in Grand Portage State Park. Along the walk to the falls there were tracks everywhere... from squirrels, birds, rabbits and mink to dogs (accompanying their human companions on their own walks to the falls). The cliff that High Falls drops over was amazing, with incredible ice formations everywhere along the rocks that make up the face of the cliff. This particular composition was just to the right of the main flow of water as it drops over the falls. This was taken with my 100-400mm lens fully extended at 400mm.
Thanks to unfavorable photography conditions for most of the past week (nothing but gray skies and flat light), I've been searching through my archives once again looking for images that I've wanted to put on my website but hadn't for one reason or another. This shot was taken at 3:17 AM on January 1, 2007 - only a few hours into the new year! The moonlight on that night was spectacular, and I had spent almost the entire night out in the woods with my camera. This photo was made with my old Canon EOS 20D camera with an exposure time of 20 seconds at an aperture of f4.0 and an ISO of 800. I hope to have some nights like this over the coming winter!
On this blustery winter's day with snow falling from the sky I find my thoughts wandering back to our mid-November trip to the Oregon coast and the beautiful weather that we encountered. Yes, it did rain as it so often does on the Oregon coast this time of year. But, we did also have some beautiful weather, as shown here at Shore Acres State Park near Coos Bay. Shore Acres is known for the massive ocean waves that frequently hammer the cliffs shown in this photo. On the day we visited, however, the ocean was about as calm as it gets. We would have loved to hang around into the evening to experience the amazing christmas light display that the park is also known for, but unfortunately we were a little too early in the season for that.
Last night's sunset wasn't much of a sunset at all, with dark clouds dominating the sky. It was still very much a scene worth photographing, however. The dark clouds and dark foreground rocks made for an ominous image. I thought the grasses in the foreground made for a nice touch to the overall scene. Hard to believe that we are a week into December already and there isn't a lick of ice to be found anywhere along this shoreline!
Okay, just in case anyone has been looking for a little more perspective on the last two ice shots I've posted, here is a wide-angle view of the wave pool that contained that eye-catching ice. Hollow Rock is in the background.
As promised, here is the same patch of ice as the photo I posted yesterday, only taken a few days later. It's amazing how the same patch of ice can look completely different from one day to the next!
So far in this early winter season we have not had cold enough temperatures for much ice to form, at least not for very long. A recent warm spell combined with rain quickly did away with what little ice and snow we had along the Lake Superior shoreline. So, I'm digging through my archives looking for ice shots, since I have "ice on the brain". This one is a shot of a small Lake Superior wave pool along the Hollow Rock shoreline, taken in January of 2007. It is one of the coolest patterns of ice that I've ever seen. The true scale (in terms of surface area) of this ice was roughly two feet by three feet. I was blown away when I discovered this unique feature. I visited the same site a few days later and the pattern in the ice was completely different. Look for that one to be posted soon :-)
Here is my favorite shot from this morning. December is my favorite time of year to shoot sunrise at Hollow Rock because you can catch the light coming through the hole in the rock. Today I had the magical combination of ideal sunrise conditions and awesome waves. Too many clouds and the light would not have shone through the hole. Not enough waves and the light wouldn't have reflected so strongly on the water. It really was one of those mornings that a photographer dreams about!
This morning's sunrise at Hollow Rock, one of the most intriguing (I think) sections of shoreline to be found anywhere along the north shore of Lake Superior. For most of the past week we have been stuck under a sky completely awash with clouds, so today it is nice to once again see the sun. Last night the forecasters were calling for the skies to clear overnight, so I woke early to see if they were right. As it turns out, they were correct! When I arrived at Hollow Rock I was pleased to see nice big waves crashing upon the shore. While calm mornings are always nice, I usually prefer to have some waves to add interest to my photos. This morning's conditions certainly did not disappoint! I have another super-cool image from this morning that I will be sharing later today, but for now I hope you enjoy this particular version of this morning's beauty on the Lake Superior shoreline.
I like photographing lighthouses, but most of the time I only enjoy it if there is a dramatic sky as a backdrop. I think this one definitely fits that criteria. This is the Coquille River Light, originally known as the Bandon Light in Bandon, Oregon. The light was first lit on February 29, 1896 and contained a fourth-order Fresnel lens. In September 1936 a large wildfire swept through the surrounding area and destroyed most of Bandon. The town soon became bankrupt as a result of the decline in shipping. The light was shut down in 1939 and replaced by an automated light on the south jetty.
