I was out clearing some trail yesterday on Jessica's deer hunting route when a group of ravens flew directly overhead. Of course, I had my camera with me and I saw them coming from a distance so I grabbed the camera and snapped some photos of them as they flew right over me. They were low enough that I could hear the wind through their wings as they flew past. It was a pretty cool experience :-)
This evening's sunset was quite spectacular! I enjoyed the show while driving down Old Highway 61 in Grand Portage, stopping now and then to shoot a photo or two of the changing colors. All of the photos I shot of sunset were taken with my 100-400mm telephoto lens. This line of Aspen tree silhouettes was my favorite view of the evening.
If you're ever in Superior, Wisconsin (or Duluth, Minnesota for that matter), you simply must take the time to drive a little south of Superior to check out Pattison State Park. There are two beautiful waterfalls there, one of which is Wisconsin's tallest. According to the park literature, Big Manitou Falls is 165 feet tall. While I found Little Manitou Falls to be more photogenic, Big Manitou Falls is also worth a photo and some time to appreciate it's beauty. Both waterfalls are a very short walk from their respective parking areas.
Here is a recent shot of some rather interesting clouds at sunset over Grand Portage Bay. Upon first glance the shape at the top left of the photo reminded me of a rabbit and the first thing I thought was "Hey, there's a rabbit riding on top of that cloud!" Thus, the title for this image was born. The rabbit shape was only there for maybe about 15 seconds before morphing into another, more abstract shape.
It's that time of year again where I am not doing a lot of shooting so I am going through some old photos and looking for things I wanted to post back when I shot them, but for whatever reason never got around to posting. Here is one such photo from September 2008 that I made on an early morning hike along the Pigeon River in Grand Portage State Park. I started out well before sunrise so I could make it to Middle Falls in time to photograph the first light on the falls.
I got there with time to spare. In fact, I had to wait for the sun to come up high enough to start hitting the waterfall. As I was waiting the sun was starting to light up the opposite shoreline of the river and when it did, the reflections on the water really started to jump out at me. I attached my 100-400mm lens and zoomed in on different areas of the water, taking advantage of this magical light.
The colors that you see in the water here are reflected blue from the early morning sky and colors from the trees that are in full sunlight on the opposite bank of the river. The area of the water that I was zoomed in on was still in the shade, but was reflecting the light from everywhere else around me. I did get some nice wide-angle shots of Middle Falls on that day, but my favorite shots of the morning were these beautiful abstracts out in the middle of the river. Once the sun was up high enough and the entire river was in full sunlight, the beautiful lighting that you see here was gone, at least until the next morning.
Just a quick post today of one of my favorite waterfalls, Partridge Falls on the Pigeon River. I always love visiting this waterfall, it never fails to impress! This photo was made during the last bit of fall color at the falls this year. The water level is a lot higher this autumn compared to autumn last year.
After our recent trip to Wisconsin to photograph Sandhill Cranes we decided to take a different route home from the route we usually take. We traveled home through Wisconsin via Highway 35, which brought us right through Pattison State Park. Pattison has two very nice waterfalls that are very easy to see after a short walk on the park trails. A drop of 165 feet makes Big Manitou Falls the tallest waterfall in Wisconsin. While fascinating to see, I did not find Big Manitou Falls overly interesting to photograph. I had more fun photographing Little Manitou Falls, which is 31 feet high according to the park literature. I just found the shape and overall character of the smaller waterfall to be more interesting than the big one. We enjoyed this park and will be stopping here again in the future for sure!
