lake effect

It was surprising to me how similar the lake was at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. A few small fish jumped, a pair of ducks swam across the glassy surface of the lake, and a snowshoe hare watched the close of the day from a grassy area overlooking the lake. I choose only to take my wide angle leaving the telephoto in the car. I made a photo of the hare, but it was much too small in the frame. Instead I was captivated by how the sky was reflecting into the water of the lake leaving a rather pastel palette and making it difficult to discern where the sky ended and the surface of the water began. It turned out to be a summer day at the end of October.

The beach near the Knife River Marina was a busy place this morning. A beaver swimming past, fishermen returning to the marina after checking nets, and a laker in the distance departing from Two Harbors to make another trip across the lake. The season is definitely changing, there was the hint of a light frost, and my hands were freezing by the time I returned to the car. It is hard to believe that November is only a few days away.

We were walking the end of Park Point heading back from the Superior Entry when the sun decided to poke out one last time for the day. I looked out over the outer breakwater and there were hundreds of gulls circling over the end of the wall. It was weird, kind of spooky. It made me wonder what floated out into the lake to catch their attention. I think they were celebrating the last warmth of the sun for the day before the cool autumn night set in. Whatever was happening it was a cool site to see.

Maple leaves on a rotting Eastern Hemlock log at Tellock’s Hill Woods.

Here is an eight-point buck that I happened upon this morning while I was taking the back way from Two Harbors to Duluth. The deer was a little spooky at first but then he was ok with my presence. I was make several photos of him near Two Harbors Road when a driver pulled up, watched what I was doing for a moment, honked his horn at length, revved his engine loudly and squealed past. The deer immediately jumped into the woods and disappeared. I was angry at the idiot for a moment, but was happy that I was able to make this picture.

It seems as if the wind and rain have been beating the land for the past several weeks. The wind is pushing huge waves ashore that pound our beaches. The rain, relentless at times, floods low areas gouging out and cleansing the land. This rock holds fast to the changing sands that are shaped by the power of the waves at Burlington Bay. The rain was spitting out of the air and the stiff east wind was causing four-foot waves to crash and push up the beach. After watching wave after wave push water around the rock I had to seek the shelter of my car because the biting sting of the rain and wind was too much.

This is one of many huge concrete sculptures at the Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips, Wis. When you first enter the park you are overwhelmed by just a huge number of life-like concrete and glass sculptures. It is difficult to decide where to begin. Alisha, Oliver, and I spent over an hour at the park in the late afternoon looking around and exploring the sculptures. After concentrating on the area where the majority of the sculptures where located I began to poke deeper into the property and came across this lone deer on the edge of the woods. With gun deer season just around the corner this brings many thoughts to my mind. I need to dig out orange clothes so that when we are in the forest, we are not considered targets. It also tells me that the first snows are not far away. I also need to get ready for the site of deer heads hanging off of tailgates with their tongues sticking out. The park is a trip, full of spooky ugly cool folk art. If you are ever near Phillips it is a must visit. I am already eager for my next visit.

It has been a crazy ten days since I last posted. I worked six days in a row, was sick for two, worked one more day, and then was out of town without any internet for the past five days. I know that goes back more than ten days, so be it. The crazy thing is that I found the time to make images on a regular basis while being super busy. In the past I usually would have given in to the pressure of the other priorities that were weighing in and I would have not made any extra fun photos. I am excited about a few of the images that I captured over the past week and a half. I will be posting images as time permits.

Enjoy.

Clint

I was down at the lift bridge yesterday for a while and it was just the wrong time of day, the light was too harsh for me. I decided to look back at previous shoots that I did and came across this image of the bridge that I took this spring. I really like how the bridge is set against the jet black of the night sky and hot it is reflected in the somewhat still waters of the harbor.

This is the middle falls at Gooseberry Falls State Park. I walked out into a torrential almost tropical rain to the falls to make some photos. It was quite the contrast to be here at this moment of time. This is one of the busiest areas of one of the busiest state parks in Minnesota. When this was photographed I was alone, surrounded by the intense noise of the water thundering over the falls and the rain racing down to meet the river. I did not even see any birds, that was how hard it was raining. It was a challenge to perceive where the rain ended and the river started. I had an odd feeling being alone and so close to the raging falls. My feelings were affirmed when several large trees crashed over the waterfall creating a sudden, large, dissident bass-filled cadence that was loud enough to drown out the sound of the water. I felt it was time to move away from the falls and give them space they were asking for.

This is the heavy rain that fell over our area on Monday morning. I took this shot while gathering my courage under a overhang at the visitors center at Gooseberry Falls State Park to walk out in the rain to go make photos of the swollen Gooseberry Falls. This building was designed by architect David Salmela of Duluth.

The collective down pressure of the rain was fascinating, I thought the waterfall coming of the corner of the roof was going to chip away layers of the blue stone walkway. The sound of the rain smacking into the earth, trees, and building was astonishing. The smell of the rain made me thirsty. As soon as I left the shelter of the overhang, I was instantly drenched. It was captivating to feel the hard rain beat down.

This horse had its back pointed into the wind next to this wall of shrubs today to seek refuge from the heavy rains that pelted the area for the last two days. This is in a pasture along Shilhon Road in St. Louis County. It was one of those mega gloomy days were the sun never did seem to rise. The moisture was heavy in the air and the bone-chilling wind gave a feeling of lingering despair. The posture of the horse sums up the feeling of the morning for me.

This is not the image I expected to bring back from Applefest in Bayfield over the weekend. Alisha and I went to Applefest on Saturday, it was a cloudy and humid day down in the city of Bayfield. After eating too many apple desserts we decided to go to a couple of orchards which are on the top of the hill above Bayfield. We drove into this incredible bank of fog that continued to get thicker and thicker as time passed. As we left Hauser’s Superior View Farms the fog masking these hardwoods caught my eye.

These reeds poking through the still waters of Shagawa Lake caught my eye as the evening light illuminates a yellow tree that is reflected in the water.