Category: The Sweetwater Seas

Ludington State Park

Ludington State Park from Richard Mack Photography, Ltd on Vimeo.

Last Thursday I rolled into Ludington State Park for a one-night stay on my way back from filming in Traverse City. I had never visited this park before, so I spent the evening walking the dunes and looking for images. To my surprise, while the campground was almost full, no one else was out wandering the dunes – much to my pleasure. Having the place to yourself gives you time to wander and take in the place and space you are in. It was interesting to find areas without any footprints in many places. It was a peaceful evening filled with images everywhere.

In the morning, while folks were still not out on the dunes yet, I flew a drone over the area before heading back home.

#thesweetwaterseas #GreatLakes #LakeMichigan #LudingtonStatePark #MichiganDNR #DJIMavic #Canon


The Sweetwater Seas Fine Art Posters

I am proud to be partnering with Quiet Light Publishing and The Sweetwater Seas documentary team to offer these Fine Art Posters from our film on all five of the Great Lakes. We currently have 24 Fine Art Posters for sale on the Quiet Light Publishing storefront. They are available in two sizes – 24″x36″ and 20″x24″. Each is printed on Fine Art Archival paper to our exacting standards. You can see and purchase any of them using this link: The Sweetwater Seas Fine Art Posters.


Shooting Farms in Wisconsin

Last week we shot for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes up in Wisconsin to continue our story on the nutrient runoff affecting the Great Lakes. Greenbay has an algae bloom like Saginaw Bay’s and Lake Erie’s. In Greenbay there is almost an annual dead zone where nothing grows as a result of the algal blooms. Farmers are working with the Natural Resources Conservation Services as part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to mitigate the nutrient runoff. We were at Brickstead Dairy, a family-owned farm in its fifth generation that is a demonstration farm for other farmers and the public to see what types of different agricultural practices might help the situation. We were there to shoot them planting into the fields that were protected by cover crops all winter, which helps preserve the soil while improving its biology so that it more readily accepts the moisture from snow and rain. I have done a lot of farm projects over the years for CaseIH and Caterpillar Tractor, but now we were shooting video and using a drone to get the aerials we wanted. Even with 15-mile-per-hour winds the Solo drone by 3DR was rock steady in the air as we shot 4K video on a beautiful day. We also put a GoPro on the planter down low to see a different angle as the planter went through the fields of cover-crop rye.

Now to assemble all these shots into the storyline for this segment of the film. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Richard


Pukaskwa Provencial Park

Whenever I do a shoot for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas I return and compile my favorite shots into a reel for quicker review when we edit the film later. This is a collection of the shots from this summer’s trip to Canada’s Pukaskwa Provincial Park on Lake Superior. I met a lot of great folks up there… Enjoy! Richard.