Big waves

North Pierhead Lighthouse  

I was supposed to sit in an airplane to Germany while I’m writing this but a strike of the Lufthansa pilots grounded me for another day. Take off from the American continent will be hopefully Friday night instead…

Time to post another photo from our Thanksgiving weekend on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin. Saturday we had another proof that Lake Michigan is not just a pond… ;-)… Strong winds created big waves that could compete with any ocean in the world at one of our favorite spots on the peninsula, North Pierhead Lighthouse…

 

Back to the only stormy day

Acadia, rocky coast  

I like to come back to the only stormy day we had up in Maine at Acadia National Park. The rocky coast between Otter Cliff and Thunder Hole is a great place to watch the surf on a day like this. I used my polarizer in front of the lens and closed down the aperture to f/16 in order to extend the exposure time to 1/3 s. I know, you can make the water even more silky by using a neutral density filter but I just liked to keep some of the dynamic in the movement of the waves. I do have several ND filters in my bag but I was happy with the results and in particular with this image. It was actually the last shot I made after almost two hours of having a blast on these cliffs. It was gray most of the time but the light just picked up some quality for a few minutes at the end of the day. I hope you enjoy.

 

Talking about Acadia National Park and more stormy days...

Surf, Acadia National Park  

It sounds silly, but I wished we would have had a couple more stormy days during our time in Maine. We had only one day that made watching the surf real fun. A great place to photograph into the surf is the Southeast shore of Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park. It is supposed to be the best part of the park to photograph classic rocky coastal scenes and dramatic seascapes. I just like to confirm the above statement I read in the book "The Photographer's Guide to the Maine Coast" by David Middleton and Bruce H. Morrison. This is by the way a very useful book if you go to Maine and try to find the best locations for photography.

Speaking of Acadia National Park, while we have been there it was officially closed because of the governmental shutdown. As you can imagine, this was not very popular among the people that have been up there at this time. Even the most conservative redneck that I met didn't like what the congressmen and women of his party tried to accomplish...

Acadia National Park has access from many different directions, unlike Yellowstone or Grand Tetons National Park. People took advantage of it, parked their cars outside of the park, and walked into the park wherever they wanted to. The park rangers (I saw only three of them within five days) tolerated the fact and obviously only persecuted those who ignored the road blocks with their cars.

OK, let's talk about photography. I have never photographed the surf along a shore intensively and so I tried a lot of different things, made many clicks, and finally deleted quite a few images after reviewing them in the safe harbor of our home...  It was actually a very gray day and the whole time, while the waves were rolling in, I was thinking about black and white as the format for the final image. But there were these brief moments when the sun would throw a little more light through the clouds and suddenly a color image wasn't a bad idea anymore...

I hope you enjoy.

 

 

Ocean feeling

Lake Michigan 1  

If you live in the Midwest of the United States chances are pretty good that you may book a flight if you like to spend some time along an ocean shore. A great way to experience the "ocean flair" without spending much time and money for a flight is to go to any of the Great Lakes. The only thing I'm missing here at Lake Michigan is the salty smell in the air that you can experience at the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. We had great weather today with still mild temperatures, sun, and a stiff breeze that created some good size waves.

 

Lake Michigan 2

 

The sun is only at an elevation of about 25 degree above the horizon at midday, and in combination with a very thin layer of clouds it creates mostly very nice light conditions. We went on some short hikes today along the coast, enjoyed the landscape and visited three lighthouses. No, we didn't eat a big Thanksgiving turkey dinner today but after a wonderful day outdoors and lots of good photo opportunities we had no regrets of eating a big bowl of chili in our little cottage this evening... ;-) More to come...

Cana Island Lighthouse