Manistee North Pier Head
Making the Rounds
Coast Guard Station Manistee's 45-foot rescue boat heads past Manistee Lighthouse on a Lake Michigan patrol. A summer squall has passed and the Coast Guardsmen are making certain mariners in the vicinity are safe.
Manistee Afterglow
We always tell our workshop students to stick around after the sun goes down to see the afterglow. Tonight, we had several workshop students on the Manistee beach with us. The sun had already set and the sky was dull. We decided to get a group photo together. Just as I was making the group shot, the sky erupted with intense color. We all split up and ran for our camera gear. It was a great teaching moment!
Manistee Ablaze
I have photographed fall color along M22 all day and now, during a diversion from the long ride home, Mother Nature has presented me with an entirely different color show. This sunset afterglow just keeps growing more vivid by the minute. I love how unreal reality can be on the Lake Michigan shoreline!
Affinity
During one of our advanced photography workshops, Rachel and I tried to convince several students to walk out the Manistee pier in the rain with us to hopefully get a shot of the lighthouse if the sun broke out. None of the other students took the risk. Just after we made it to this spot, the rain poured down on us as hard as I have ever seen it rain. We had no rain gear on and our cameras and lenses were literally filling with rain. I told her to leave her lens cap on and to preset her exposure based on the sun popping out of the clouds because I knew it would be a one-shot deal. By the second shot the end of the lens would be so full of raindrops, the shot would be ruined. Luckily for us, the sun did break through the clouds for a few glorious moments and we each got one shot off that was properly exposed and in focus.
Looking Lively
After nearly two hours of shooting stormy seas battering the Manistee pier, a little sunshine finally finds its way partially through the clouds, providing a wider range of tonal values for the black and white image I want to make of this lakeshore drama. Good light is worth waiting for. The added light also enables me to close my aperture by two more stops to render more of the scene in sharp focus while still stopping action.
F11 at 1/800, ISO 800, 80-200mm lens at 200mm
