October 10, 2018

After unsuccessfully chasing a rare Sabine’s Gull on Duluth, Minnesota’s Park Point, I realized how big the waves on Lake Superior were. I knew that the wind had been blowing hard all night, but I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together…Until I saw the flooding in Canal Park. The parking lot by Duluth’s canal and Marine Museum was already flooded and closed off. I parked as close as I could and skirted the floodwaters behind a hotel. Sheltering in a cluster of pine trees some 100 feet from the shoreline, I started snapping photos. Every few minutes, a series of bigger waves would roll in and explode around the East Pier Breakwall Lighthouse (photo below). I had to frequently turn my back on the lake and shelter my camera from the spray. I had rubber knee-high boots on and a rain coat, but it did little to protect me when a massive wave broke out of my peripheral vision and soaked me up to my waist. This wave must have been significantly bigger than the rest since up to this point only a couple times had the water even reached me. Time to go!

I headed up the North Shore for Tettegouche State Park. The huge rhyolite cliffs there are at a perfect angle for taking on the giant waves of a nor’easter storm. I called my photographer friend Paul Sundberg who intimately knows the photo opportunities on the North Shore (See his website here). It was no surprise that when he answered his cell phone I could hear the wailing wind in the background. He was already shooting the super-waves. He pointed me towards Crystal Bay on Lake Superior near Illgen City. He said the fall colors made for a unique shot since most big storms happen in late spring (no leaves yet) or during the “Gales of November” (leaves all gone). Paul is very generous with his info and I thanked him as we crossed paths at the spot. He’d already been shooting for a couple hours and was headed to find lunch. I took his spot.

The highest cliffs in these photos are about 80 feet tall I believe. That puts some amazing perspective to these monster waves. I took photos with my Canon 7D and Canon 70-200mm f4 lens, while simultaneously shooting video with my Panasonic GH5 on a tripod next to me. I didn’t record good audio just because I didn’t think about it. Wish I would have.

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 70mm; 1/800 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 70mm; 1/1600 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 70mm; 1/800 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 180mm; 1/500 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 100mm; 1/640 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 70mm; 1/800 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Crystal Bay, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 154mm; 1/640 second at f8; ISO 800; handheld; processed in Lightroom; processed in Lightroom]

East pier lighthouse; Canal Park, Duluth, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 140mm; 1/500 second at f8; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

East pier lighthouse; Canal Park, Duluth, Minnesota, Lake Superior (October 10, 2018)

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 USM lens at 140mm; 1/500 second at f8; handheld; processed in Lightroom]

Video shot with Panasonic GH5 with Sigma 50-500mm lens at 50-200mm (depending on shot) on Benro tripod;  frame rates varying from 30fps to 180fps (super slow motion). Created in iMovie.

Did the title of this post catch your attention? Well the title could very well have been: “PUT YOUR BEST PHOTOS AND VIDEO EVERYWHERE! BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO MIGHT SEE IT AND CALL YOU AND WANT TO BUY IT” Maybe a little wordy, but the point is that as photographers, we should be sharing our stuff, first and foremost just to share our passion with the world, but also it doesn’t hurt if every now and then someone wants to buy something of yours!

In this case, I received a call a few weeks ago from a production company in Los Angeles. They had found my short video clip of monster waves hitting the icy shore of Tettegouche State Park on Lake Superior during a March gale last year. The editors liked it and included it in the “rough cut” for their client—DiscoverAmerica, an organization promoting tourism TO the U.S. in Europe, Asia and around the World. Well, the 1-second clip survived the cuts and even made it into two TV commercials (shown below).

When I opened the link to the finished product yesterday, I was thrilled with the videos…I had no idea that the whole campaign was built around a music video and original song by ROSEANNE CASH, country-pop-folk-blues-rock star and eldest daughter of Johnny Cash. Fun surprise! …and a great video. It is a 12.3 million dollar project and the “first ever global ad campaign for the United States.” The TV commercials will run in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and other countries. And the website is very fun too…see it here.

Look for my clip at 1:10 in full length video

Look for my clip at 0:06 in the “See it” short video

No clip of mine in this short, but the outdoor adventure sport clips are fantastic!

Here is the full clip shot at Tettegouche State Park on Lake Superior on March 23, 2011.

So I guess the point is, that sometimes you get lucky! And to get lucky, people have to be able to find and see your stuff…and today that means the internet. To help your odds of being “discovered,” keyword your photos and give your titles/file names common sense searchable names “Waves on Lake Superior” for example (This is how they found my video on vimeo). Also use photo/video sites like photoshelter, smugmug, flickr, google plus, vimeo and youtube to place your galleries and videos. And blogs consistently rank high in searches because they are updated frequently (or should be!).

My video shot with the Canon 7D and Canon 70-200 f4 lens on tripod.