Friday Afternoons at Big Thoughts Pond – May 9, 2014

May 9, 2014
Big Thoughts PondRichard Mack PhotographyRichard Mack's Blog

Big Thoughts Pond

This is the first edition of what I hope becomes a Friday afternoon tradition – a few thoughts about the past week. I guess we shall see how faithful I am to this particular mission!

This past week we worked with Publicis Life Brands in NYC for a client of theirs. Always fun to work with folks from a distance! I also did a lot more research on the Great Lakes Project, The Sweetwater Seas, and planned to go to Sleeping Bear Dunes in June to shoot the Piping Plover who are down to 59 breeding pairs in the Midwest, with only 5000 birds worldwide. The nest at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore in the spring/summer months and are being protected by the National Park Service and US Fish & Wildlife arm of the DNR. A great story about how we can make a difference in protecting our lakes and the species who live along them. I learned though that there are no campground spots available until late August 2014! And I thought I could just run up there and find a place to camp…working on an alternative!

And in my small environment the pond, known as Big Thoughts Pond is back up and running this year and stocked with new goldfish! All were lost over the winter, some 20 years old. Start of a new time…

Cheers,

Richard

 

Niagara Falls in Winter

May 9, 2014
Great Lakes ProjectNiagara FallsQuiet Light PublishingRichard Mack PhotographywinterWinter Landscape Photography

I just realized I only had done a draft of this posting so here it is…

In March I went with producer George Elder to Niagara Falls to shoot the frozen falls before they melted for our Great Lakes Project, The Sweetwater Seas documentary and book. I was shooting stills for the book and some video scenes for the TV production but George who is a great videographer/producer shot mostly video for the production. Here are a few of my raw clips I shot which show you what it truly was like as we shot. Perfect weather for us as a light overcast the first day and a blizzard the next with almost 12” of snow and strong winds! Perfect! So enjoy the video clips and here is a link to my favorite still images. We also stopped along Lake Erie on the way out there and Lake Ontario and Huron on the way home.

Link to Video: Niagara Falls in Winter

Niagara Falls Winter Still Images

Enjoy!

Richard Mack

 

Expectations vs Going With the Flow

February 15, 2014
ExpectationsGreat Lakes ProjectLake MichiganRichard Mack Photography

Yesterday I was planning to fly around Chicago and make some late afternoon images of the city with the ice out on Lake Michigan. Yet the day’s overcast didn’t lift as expected by noon, so we waited and waited and I kept in touch with my pilot until I had to make the final decision of go or no go. Because the sky was still a high overcast it would have been just a blown out white sky – not what I was looking for. With great reluctance based on what I could see, what the satellite images said and my gut feelings I made the choice to call it a day and try again soon before it all melts. And of course right after I made the no go call the sky cleared! It would have been one of those days where you were either a hero with a great shot or the goat because it just didn’t work.

With 88% of all five Great Lakes frozen over it is a historic winter. As part of my Great Lakes Project and a book with the working title The Sweetwater Seas, you just have to shoot as much of the winter scenes you can. Lake Michigan is 77% frozen over with ice, hasn’t happened since 1993/94 winter. As an aside, the book project has become a bit more interesting and I am currently working with a TV Producer and a writer to see if more can be done with this project. It has been very interesting and insightful to get other folks input into one of my book projects rather than working it alone. We have refined the direction of the project and as all projects do you may plan on going one way and end up a totally different direction.

Because it was also a full moon evening I went down to Lighthouse Beach once again. With the clouds still on the horizon to the east I knew seeing the moonrise in time to get a shot of it would probably not be in the cards. Yet the beauty of the sky and ice gave me a lot of things to do in a few ways. The 15-20 foot ice cliffs with the thinner ice out beyond in white were beautiful in the evening light.

Changing your expectations of what you planned on at any one time often leads you to unexpected pleasures. Going with the flow of the day can lead to something not planned and yet maybe better than what you had planned – you may never know. I am very happy with what I found on the beach that evening. I am glad I wasn’t so disappointed with not flying that I didn’t come on down to the beach. The clouds kept the moonrise out of sight until it was too dark to get a good photograph so my hope of getting the moon and ice this year has disappeared. Yet other images did present themselves.

Ironically as I pulled into my garage I saw the moon up in the sky – way too late for any photography. For the most part it is always best to shoot the full moon the day before, in this case on the 13th not the 14th because it rises about an hour before sunset giving you enough light in the landscape to balance with the exposure for the moon. The last shots I did were over 2 seconds in length, so the moon would actually move in the exposure and make it look oval.

Too see more images use this link:

https://www.mackphoto.com/BlogImages/LHB140214

Cheers,

Richard

 

Expanding Your Creative Mind… Make it a New Year’s Resolution?

December 28, 2013
ExpectationsGreat Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLighthouse BeachPhotographyRichard Mack Photographywinter

This morning I just had to get out and see what the lakefront looked like today. Of course the fact that it is sunny and warm had a lot to do with it, but more importantly I felt I just had to get down and see what kind of images I could make. How creative I could be and how I might be able to do something different than I usually shoot. The urge to photograph pushed me out the door. To see more from my shoot today use this link: https://www.mackphoto.com/BlogImages/LighthouseBeachWinter/

I’ve talked before about creative thinking and making sure you “move outside your box” when shooting. Get lower, higher, tighter, wider, details, entire landscapes with lots of sky – all of it. Yet we tend to shoot the way we shoot. I have had the pleasure of being on location with another photographer a lot lately. One who does not think or see the way I do. It is a pleasure to watch how she moves and sees the same place I do. We come back with very different images. While I like what I shoot, there are many I look at from her and say, wow, wish I had thought of that, you see the world in such a different way. We can discover the same effect by looking at other peoples work online. A lot of people influence us as photographers. We see their way of seeing. Some do this for a living, many do not, yet they seem to have an eye for composition and a way of seeing the world.

Now when I shoot, especially some place like Lighthouse Beach, as I have shot it more times than I can count, I think of how others might approach this place. I am sure if I was shooting with someone else we would certainly come away with very different images, but it is that way of seeing, your way, my way, which sets us apart as storytellers. We take each other’s work into account and adapt it to our own style.

Today I was thinking not so much of the grand openness of the landscape but of the details which would show what the shoreline looked like. How the ice and snow had piled up and looking at the connection between the lake and the ice. That line in the sand if you will. I was also fascinated by how many people were down there looking at the lakefront as well. Many climbing to the edge to peer over and see what the intersection of water and ice looked like.

One interesting observation was the old pier at the north end had been almost completely obliterated by the sand and ice. Is the sand higher because the water level is lower or has the ice just pushed the sand up and over it? Here are two images, one from a few summers ago and one from today.

To see more from my shoot today use this link: https://www.mackphoto.com/BlogImages/LighthouseBeachWinter/

Will any of these make it into my Great Lakes Project? Never know until it is finished. And might I add the working title has changed to Sweetwater Seas from Twenty|Ninety-Five. Go ahead and guess as to the meaning for each of these working titles…go ahead and make a comment below – will be interesting to see everyone’s ideas. It will look at all five Great Lakes and how we as mankind have had an effect on them only in the last 200 years even though we have been living along them for thousands of years.

My other goal for this coming year is to really get back to working on this project and hopefully have it 95% shot by the end of the year. A big task and a lofty goal but if you don’t set your goals high what are you shooting for?

I hope you all have a great 2014! Let’s see our world slightly differently this year and yet put our own style in our storytelling.

Here is to a great 2014!

Happy New Year,

Richard