Over the last week, I’ve been looking back at the photos I took in 2012 trying to identify my best images of the year and my favorite images of the year. I also compared this year’s photos to last year to see how my style has changed (and it has changed!). My pictures in 2012 [...]
My Northern Landscapes 2013 Calendar features images from the Grand Marais and Grand Portage area of Cook County, Minnesota. I took each of the images at some point during 2012, so all the images are fresh and some of the most liked of the year. Most of the images are of Lake Superior, but I [...]
In April when winter’s snowpack melts, it rushes down Lake Superior’s tributaries and over the numerous waterfalls. The waterfalls thunder, the narrow canyons fill and the ground shakes from the excess water. No other time of year allows for the dynamic photography of waterfalls along Lake Superior. Although we won’t visit the well-known and over-photographed [...]
What a month March was in the northland. It got hot, the snow melted, it got cold, it snowed. The waterfalls are running, kayakers are kayaking and skiers are still skiing. It was an unusual March in Grand Marais. Usually, during March we photograph frozen shorelines and the breaking up ice pack, but this month [...]
489 pictures out of about 1,500. That’s the number of pictures that I kept in February. Out of those 489, I had 70 that I considered worth flagging for adjustment. Out of those 70, I really love about 5 or 6 of them. Getting 5 or 6 photos that I love in one month is a [...]
This year December seemed more like November, and November seemed more like December. Usually on the north shore, we get waves — lots of waves — in November, but this year it was relatively calm, and then December happened. Constant winds blowing across Lake Superior drove waves to Grand Marais and made for great photography. If you [...]
This photo is from the Kadunce River near Grand Marais, Minnesota.
In February, Lake Superior starts to freeze. Thick sheets of pack ice get pushed up onto the shore making a maze of blue ice to walk through. This ice also makes an interesting subject to photograph — the deep blue of the ice contrasts with the splash of color during the sunrise and sunset, which [...]
Canoeing in the Fog, originally uploaded by Bryan Hansel. Via Flickr: Canoeing on Sag in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A dense fog covers everything.
Over the past 17 days, I’ve canoed about 250 or so miles from Crane Lake to Lake Superior via the Border Route in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I joined Amy and Dave Freeman of Wilderness Classroom. They been out all summer and paddled over 2,300 miles from the Great Slave Lake to Superior. [...]
My Northern Landscapes 2012 – a Lake Superior Calendar features pictures from Grand Marais area of Lake Superior. Four of the images come from the surrounding area; they represent George Washington Pines, the Flute Reed River, flowers near my house and the northern lights over Northern Lights Lake. The rest are from Lake Superior. The [...]
The Minnesota northern lights were out tonight, so we drove up the Gunflint looking for a good location to view them. It turned out that Northern Lights Lake provided the best view. We watched them dance above our heads for hours. For about a half hour, they were so bright that the almost full moon [...]
The Lake Superior shoreline along Minnesota’s north shore and the Boundary Waters are among the most scenic locations in North America for landscape photography. The granite and basalt cliffs offer natural leading lines and interesting jagged breaks and cracks that work well for picture’s foregrounds. The Sawtooth Mountains work as great backgrounds. The lake is [...]
A lightning storm over Grand Marais lights up the harbor while the lighthouse flashes.
Grand Marais sunsets are the best! During the summer months, the sun moves so far inland that it’s hard to get good color over the lake, but that starts to change in August when the sun moves further south and the Grand Marais sunset times move in the 8 o’clock hour. These are Grand Marais [...]
Artist’s Point in Grand Marais, MN protects the harbor and the East Bay. The ancient basalt wears away slowly as Lake Superior’s wave rush over the points and collect in small pools. It makes one of my favorite photography destination near Grand Marais and Lutsen. It works for almost every time of the year. Last [...]
Spent the day picking blueberries on the Gunflint Trail. For fun, I brought along my digital pinhole camera lens and took pictures under the bright blue sky. Even on a sunny day, a pinhole camera needs about three seconds to make a proper exposure. Back home, I played with the image to get an old [...]
It has felt like a windy year in Grand Marais, Minnesota and along the north shore from Tofte through Lutsen past Grand Portage and elsewhere on Lake Superior. It’s constant presence this year made me wonder about capturing a photograph of wind. The only way that I know how to do that is to capture [...]