Category: Quiet Light Publishing

Great Lakes Lighthouses

July 22, 2024
Aerial PhotographyGreat LakesLighthousesRichard Mack PhotographyThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater SeasTourismtravelTravel Photography

What summer trip might you be planning? There are 388 lighthouses around the Great Lakes. They are beckoning you to a great trip of discovery!

It may surprise you in these days of near-universal GPS systems, 300 of the lighthouses are still active aids to navigation. The state of Michigan has more lighthouses along its coastline than any other state in the United States.

Here is the count of many active lighthouses are on the Great Lakes by state and Canadian province:

Ontario – 94

Michigan – 109

Wisconsin – 39

New York – 21

Ohio – 14

Minnesota – 7

Illinois – 8

Indiana – 6

Pennsylvania – 2

Can you name where your states lighthouses all are? Most people can only name a few.

Lake Michigan – 97

Lake Huron – 95

Lake Superior – 75

Lake Erie – 68

Lake Ontario – 53

Follow this link for a map of all Great Lakes lighthouses.

https://gllka.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9e1508ae15f9444f9b960aa42e435951

You can tour many of these lights, and you can at least walk around most of them. Many give you the opportunity not just to make it back to a harbor or around an island safely but make stunning photographs in all types of weather. Every lighthouse was built for a reason, either too many shipwrecks in the area from shoals or shallow water or to aid navigation to harbors.

Get out there and visit these great places, many built more than 100 years ago and still in operation. To learn more about them, visit www.thesweetwaterseas.com and find more information on lighthouses and other places around the Great Lakes. We have lots of links on our learn more page.

Cheers, Richard

*Statistics from the National Lighthouse Keepers Association   https://www.gllka.org/faq

United States Lighthouse Society https://uslhs.org/

Source:http://thesweetwaterseas.com/blogsws/LighthousesonGreatLakes

The Four Dances – Great Egrets in Wisconsin

June 20, 2024
New WorkPhotographyQuiet Light PublishingRichard MackRichard Mack PhotographyTourismtravel

I had a chance to look at some older images I’ve made and decided what at first have been individual images needed to be put together. I have hung the top left corner and bottom right corner next to each other in canvas prints. Going through the old images I realized two more could easily be added to make it a group of Four Dances. The great Egrets were found on an island in Whitewater Lake in Wisconsin and I’m told they are no longer nesting with the hundreds other egrets found there.

This image is now available in the shop at Quiet Light Publishing. Cheers, Richard

Foreword Book Award Silver Medals!

June 11, 2024
awardsBook AwardsBooksGreat Smoky Mountain National ParkGreat Smoky Mountains BookGreat Smoky Mountains NPnational parksNational Parksnaturenature photographyNature Photography AwardQuiet Light PublishingRichard MackRichard Mack PhotographyRichard Mack's BlogSmokiesSmoky Mountain National ParkSmoky MountainsSmoky Mountains Bookwaterfalls

Today we learned my book Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Fifty Years of American Landscapes has been named a winner in two categories in the 26th annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards. We won the Silver Award in both the Nature Book and Art Book categories!

I am humbled and proud to have won the Silver Awards with so many entries from around the world. You always hope people like your work, and it is gratifying to receive such recognition.

The Foreword INDIES recognize the best books published in 2023 from independent and university presses, as well as self-published authors.

With over 2,400 entries submitted across 55 categories, this year’s competition showcased the remarkable talent and diversity of the independent publishing industry. Foreword’s dedicated editors carefully selected approximately 12 finalists per genre, which were then presented to individual librarians and booksellers entrusted with the challenging task of determining the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention winners.

#quietlightpublishing#richardmackphoto#mackphoto#forewordreview#ForewordINDIES#greatsmokymountainsnationalpark#smokieslife#NPS#nationalparks#smokymountains#smokymountainstennessee#smokymountainsnc#smokymountains

Wait a Day…

February 24, 2021
environmentGreat Lakes ProjectLake Michigannature photographyRichard Mack PhotographyThe Sweetwater SeaswinterWinter Landscape PhotographyWinter photography

If you know the Great Lakes, and many say any place, the weather can change on a moment’s notice. On February 13-14 this year here in Chicago we had a snowstorm that dropped 20” from the sky. Along with that we had winds coming out of the north and right down Lake Michigan which blew the ice into shore. I went down to the shoreline of Lake Michigan on the 17th to see the conditions of the lake, expecting ice up against the shoreline, yet it had already moved out about 2 miles offshore. Still we had the ice built up high along the shore and the open water behind it so I made both some still and video shots of the lake. The next day I went back to the same spots and because the winds had shifted yet again the ice had moved back into the shoreline right up to the pack ice. An interesting perspective on the changes which come within 24 hours along the Great Lakes. And below are some of the still images.

Enjoy,

Richard