More from Lake Superior - this is Crystal Bay with two additional views. I include these because I want to show how folks typically shoot this landscape and how few options there are for doing it. Basically we have a crescent of rocky beach, some cliffs and a crap ton of water. If it was actually cold and there was ice, that might be different, but it wasn’t and there wasn’t. So I decided to get low and close and while it might not be the “prettiest” landscape ever, I think it has a lot more interest and drama than the standing on the beach type of photo. Oh and these are just on opposite ends of the same beach - one with a shallow cave and the other with ice. The beach is a few hundred yards across.
The other end showing a leading line you can create, but it’s the only one there is, so again it’s kind of boring and the way all photos look of this cliff.
The dark rectangle in the middle is a shallow cave, just a depression really. The real caves on Lake Superior are much deeper, but only accessible when the whole lake is basically frozen which only happens every 10 years or so. Getting to them by water is risky with tides and undertow. Talk about bang your head!
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
The star is really the ice and the color of the cliffs themselves. Lake Superior was created by volcanic activity which is different from the other 4 Great Lakes which were formed during glacial activity. So the earth surrounding Superior is heavy with iron and copper, two minerals still mined there today. In winter all the cliffs are coated with ice formations and so I thought this approach would work to show those rather than just the standard landscape view. What’s your reaction to the two different approaches?
Technical Details
Tripod & polarizer
Lr to correct wb and work to bring up contrast, color and other detail in the cliff and ice. It was pretty flat so it needed work in the Calibration and HSL panels for the colors to pop more. Also some lens correction and Transform for geometry correction since it’s so wide and close.
Kris, I like how you went low and close to the right side of the ice here. And contrasting the colors in the rocks with the ice is a great touch too. I think your first image has much more interest and impact. Definitely a winner.
Of course, I just had to see what this might look like in B&W:
Ah, I knew someone would try this in B&W! Thanks @David_Bostock - it looks interesting, but I just can’t bring myself to crank down all those colors. The iron content of the rock is just too intense.
Beautiful photo image, Kris. The top one is my favorite and the low profile worked out well. It is very interesting how moving around brings a different view of a landscape. The composition of the first one was well framed.
Thanks @Dean. It was kind of funny to watch the other folks set up first on the scene. I got right up in on the wall and probably messed up their shots for a few minutes until I moved back. Then someone else came and basically filled my tripod holes. I laughed.
I have to say that the first one is unique and appealing and it shows the details in that red rock and the ice very well! It is a pleasant perspective and I like it.
But I like the others too because I have never seen this area before.
The second has that nice diagonal line with the red colored reflection in the water, and the ice and trees are well presented. The size of the trees getting smaller towards the left shows just how big that slope is, as well as how deep the scene is.
The third one has that really nice crescent lead in line that takes me to the open cave with the rock column inside and even though they are just depressions in the wall, they still have interest for me. That same crescent line then carries me onto the end where it falls off to the open water and that one shows a lot of depth as well.
The luminance in that cloudy sky sets the mood very nicely for the whole series
Very nice!
BTW, I looked at these images before now and that lead me down a pretty deep rabbit hole because you mentioned how this lake was formed differently from the other great lakes, yeah, I watched a “few” video’s on how it was formed And I enjoyed learning about it
Well done Kris. I really the depth created in this comp, combining both the texture and details of the ice and cliffs, with the near/far landscape showing context and location. Hope that made sense. In otherwords, one can explore those details up close, but then step back and enjoy the broader view.
I do like David’s B&W rendition a lot as the tonal range works beautifully with this scene - but of course totally appreciate the colors here.
I like the sweeping vista of the opposite view. All of them are quite excellent.
Thanks @Lon_Overacker & @Merv for chiming in. I have a love/hate relationship with Lake Superior and so whenever I go there I’m challenged to photograph it in ways that aren’t like everyone else, but that also show the dramatic and somewhat offbeat beauty that can be found there. Even with a relatively static and popular type of image, I try to process it well. Got lucky with the sky for sure.
Lake Superior is quite storied both in its Native American past and European. In terms of culture clash, this area has some of the lowest incidents of nastiness although there is a drama currently going on here in Northern Wisconsin. One of the guys who led the workshop that I’ve known for a while is caught up in it as well as his neighbors. We can only hope it ends soon.
I have to say I like the first one the best like everyone else. I really like the big icicles coming down from the cliffs. I can see why you chose that angle, the other ones seem kind of boring. I think it would be neat even closer with more focus on that. But I guess you want to show that it’s on the shore of Lake Superior. I would love to go there sometime, it looks so beautiful! Nice composition!
Thanks @Vanessa_Hill - the ice can be really impressive in cold years, but at least we had some. Superior is a really fun place to visit, hope you get here sometime. Before we moved, my husband and I drove around it, stopping whenever and wherever we liked. That was some roadtrip!
And I enjoyed learning about it