Sunset at the St. Louis River, just outside of Duluth, Minnesota
Jay Cooke State Park was the last campsite for one night at the end of our journey through the Northwoods of Minnesota. We had some snow and rain during the trip and shooting pictures of fast flowing water just seems to be a logic consequence. Well, I love to make photos of creeks and rivers. It is never boring and always a challenge.
I have talked here in the blog some time ago about a technique to make these kind of pictures without the use of a neutral density filter. There are sometimes situations where combining multiple exposures in one image, right in camera, is a valid solution. In particular at narrow and busy places, like famous waterfalls, with lots of visitors. Observation decks for example often vibrate and make any effort with a long exposure useless.
For this photo things were just great. At this time of the year, mid October, the low sun covers the river and the surrounding rocks with warm light for quite some time before it disappears behind the trees. With the Nikon D750 on a solid tripod I used the BREAKTHROUGH X4, 6-stop ND filter in front of the Nikon Nikkor 70-200, f/4 lens. For the final image a 5 second exposure at f/18, ISO 100 was used. Sure, some people like to see the water even silkier, it’s an unfortunate trend at the moment, but the wild St. Louis River, with its waterfalls and cascades, is not smooth at all at this place. The story of that evening was the combination of soft and warm light with the fast flow and turbulences of the river. If weather allows Joan and I will be back in the Duluth area very soon. Can you sense my excitement…? 😊