Description
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Stories behind the images:
January
I love winter on Lake Superior—especially the magic that happens when temperatures get well below zero. A high cliff on the Minnesota shore provided the perfect vantage point to witness this frosty sunrise over sweeping patterns in the ice.
February
I was photographing the ice shards at the tip of Artists’ Point in Grand Marais, Minnesota when this red fox showed up. It paid no attention to me as it trotted along the shore, then sprinted about a quarter mile out onto the ice. It stood looking off towards the distant shore for a few minutes then meandered back to further investigate the ice shards.
March
Grand Island National Recreation Area lies just offshore from Munising, Michigan. The sandstone cliffs and sea caves become encrusted with thick curtains of ice. From the outside. they are a subtle turquoise, but from the inside, with the light transmitted through them, they range from blues to emerald greens.
April
Honey and I were staying at a friend’s home on Park Point, the long sandbar stretching from Minnesota to Duluth at the mouth of the St. Louis River, when this rainbow appeared over the stairway leading through the dunes.
May
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is aptly named for the mineral seeps covering the towering sandstone cliffs. The flame-like patterns here are among my favorites in the park.
June
The huge mass of Lake Superior holds the cold of winter, causing spring to come late around the lake’s northern shore. The spring greens we associate with early May come to Pukaskwa National Park several weeks later.
July
I love returning to locations I’ve previously photographed. My first trip to these islands in Middle Islands Passage on Isle Royale had been in 1992. As I am writing this, I’m comparing an image made then, with the July image in this calendar. While I selected a different focal length lens, and am now working digitally, instead of with 4×5 inch film, the two images are remarkably similar. I somehow wound up within about a foot away from the previous image. A large tree in the background has disappeared, and the gnarled roots in the upper right have grown some, but otherwise the scene has changed little.
August
When I was a young child I loved to copy Northwest Native American artwork. The concept of images hidden within other images fascinated me then, and it still does. When I saw this eye-shaped opening through with which I could view the background caves, it simply had to be photographed.
September
By September, the calm days of summer on Lake Superior are few and far between, and I put away the kayak in exchange for hiking boots. While these waves are relatively small, they indicate the need for light houses in the early days of shipping.
October
Nothing brings out the beauty of fall colors like a rainy day with a few hints of sunshine. This breathtaking vista from the top of Michigan’s Brockway Mountain was the perfect place to take in the minute-by-minute changes in the weather.
November
I was teaching a “fall color” photography workshop on Wisconsin’s Madeline Island, when fall decided to end early. The colors had largely come and gone and the leaves were quickly being blown off the trees. As the saying goes… “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. I lined my students up along the cliff edge and we photographed the leaves drifting by with the backdrop of refraction patterns on the rocks below the water.
December
It is a rare and wonderful time of year. Puddles are freezing, icicles forming along the shore, but there has yet to be a snowstorm covering their beauty. Twenty-below zero air meeting open water creates sea smoke. While the morning sun provides little in the way of temperature warmth, it does warm the spirit.
