Tag: Lighthouses

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

Grosse Point Lighthouse Documentary

October 21, 2020
Aerial PhotographyCanonDJI MavicdroneeveningLake MichiganLighthouse BeachLighthousesnew projectsNew WorkRichard Mack PhotographyThe Sweetwater Seastravel

While we are still filming and editing the documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes, we were asked by the Lighthouse Park District in Evanston to produce a short introductory film about the Grosse Point Lighthouse.

Because we live in Evanston and grew up on Lighthouse Beach, we were delighted to take on this project and help people know this amazing National Landmark. In these times of Covid-19, the Grosse Point Lighthouse has been closed to visitors, as is the case with all lighthouses on the Great Lakes. This film will inform people about the history of the lighthouse, show you portions of its interior and aerial views that not even the visitors get to enjoy.

Don Terras, the Director of Lighthouse Park District, gives us a great history of why it was built at Grosse Point, what the lighthouse keepers did and more.

Because we are just one mile from the landmark, Grosse Point Lighthouse and its adjacent beach has been one of the locations we have used extensively for filming, from shooting the weather in every season, sunsets, moonrises and more, to testing equipment.

We hope you enjoy this short film about the Grosse Point Lighthouse.

Cheers,

Richard

South Haven Lighthouse

September 12, 2019
Aerial PhotographyDJI MavicdroneEquipmentGreat Lakes ProjectLake MichiganThe Sweetwater SeasTravel Photography

Over this past Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of joining a group of friends and family who have met each year at the wonderful Michi-Mona-Mac cabins in South Haven, Michigan. It was a wonderful time with this group of folks for the first time over the Labor Day weekend. I had the chance to use the DJI Mavic Pro drone to do some aerial video for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes. On this morning it was slightly overcast at sunrise and with little wind.

Using manual settings, I shot at 1/50 of a second, as the frame rate in the end will be 24 frames a second. It is best to try and shoot with double the frame rate to give you a smooth image. Using ISO 100 and adjusting the aperture until I the exposure was accurate. I always use a polarizing filter as well – especially when shooting over water – but in all honesty whether shooting stills or video it is always on my lenses.

I knew several of the shots I wanted to get before starting out, and while I did not do a storyboard before flight, I had mapped it out in my head what I wanted in the finished film. Setting up each shot so I could edit them together later. There are always happy surprises like the folks walking the pier or only one boat coming down the river into the open lake instead of many at a time. I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit the film instead of the DJI software. We shall see if we use any of this is the final film and I am guessing some shots will be used.

I hope you enjoy this small piece!

Cheers,

Richard Mack

Addendum:

Tower Information
Tower Height: 35.00′
Focal Plane: 37′
Active Aid to Navigation: Yes
Latitude: 42.40100 N
Longitude: -86.28800 W

The South Haven South Pierhead Light is a lighthouse in Michigan, at the entrance to the Black River on Lake Michigan. The station was lit in 1872, and is still operational. The tower is a shortened version of the Muskegon South Pierhead Light, and replaced an 1872 wooden tower. The catwalk is original and still links the tower to shore: it is one of only four that survive in the State of Michigan. The keeper’s house is on shore, 2-​1⁄2 stories tall, wood with a hipped-roof. It was also built in 1872, and is located at 91 Michigan Avenue onshore, was transferred to the city for preservation in 2000. The Michigan Maritime Museum has renovated the keeper’s house as the Marialyce Canonie Great Lakes Research Library.

Aerials at Grosse Pointe Lighthouse

January 7, 2016
Richard Mack Photography

Grosse Pointe Lighthouse from Richard Mack Photography, Ltd on Vimeo.

I had the pleasure of shooting at the Grosse Pointe Lighthouse on Lake Michigan as part of filming for the television documentary I am part of The Sweetwater Seas – A Documentary About North America’s Great Lakes. With the soft light of a winter afternoon I set out to get footage I had thought about for awhile with my Solo 3dr. When flying it takes a lot of planning to get the shots you want to get from various angles in order to tell the story you want to get across. This day seemed perfect so from flying over the water to around the lighthouse it was a great afternoon. You can see more about this documentary on the Sweetwater Seas website.