End of January 2010- wow!

What's happened since last post:
We had a great winter thaw, about two weeks of weather in the balmy 30's, much welcomed in January, we can still see our driveway pavement! and even some grass in the front yard!  And the lake isn't froze yet ! Triumph!
I kind of put the blog aside as there's much to be done around here in the offseason, taxes, taxes, taxes, backups, decluttering, reorganizing, cleaning, and the list goes on. A little overwhelming to say the least.


Tonight is the Ish Suicide Bowl Ski jumps. If you haven't gone, it's really cool. These youngsters jump off a ski jump and fly through the air, the competition is held at night. It will be brutally cold. Perfect for ice conditions!

Lake Superior Winter

Revisiting 2009, (not that I really want to) I think most of us have already bid 2009 a hearty adieu. We held our own in 2009 and are very grateful for that. And,we thank you for checking in with us every once and awhile on this sporadic, at best, blog. As I look out my window today and am greeted to a very cold Lake Superior that overnight, started to ice ball and ice-mountain up, and this will continue all day with temps not budging much above 5F. I think back to that gale a few days ago that I ventured out and watched the big surf roll in for hours- here's a pic where I was fortunate enough to spot another brave soul out with me across the cove-

New Year's Eve Ball Drop- yooper style

One thing is for sure, yoopers have an ingeneously humorous sense of creativity as seen here in a picture of the actual ball that drops in Marquette Mi, every New Year's Eve. The ball is lowered manually, down four stories of one of the most historic buildings in Marquette, and at the strike of midnight, the New Year in illuminated numbers lights up at the top of the building facade. Be it rain, but most of the time snow, biting cold  and blizzard, thousands come out to spend their New Year's Eve here. A stiff wind with gusts approaching gale, and numerous snow squalls kept us in our toasty home last night. Cheers to all that ventured out. We were content to watch the New York ball drop on tv. Here's an interesting bit all about this year's beautiful Waterford Crystal ball. all about the New York New Year's ball 2010 . Happy New Year to all!

great lakes freighters

It's been busy at both harbors in Marquette lately. This is the first time we've ever seen two freighters on the same side of the ore dock at the Upper Harbor. Don't know if this is something we will see more often or if it was because the ships were waiting out the storm. Not sure, but I think Jan 15 is the last day for shipping for the winter.

sounds like thunder

Was the scene yesterday on Lake Superior. We had a gale blowing up here in Marquette. So what's one to do? Head out to the lake, brave winds strong enough to test your balance, hike through cornea pummeling snow grains flying sideways, put up with eye watering, and nose watering, bone chilling cold. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing on days like these. Three hats, three layers of coats, two layers of pants, and goggles, and toasty Baffin boots and I'm hiking ready. At the height of the big sets that rolled through yesterday afternoon, there were some monsters. Was a creepy feeling when the snow squalls would come through and you only heard the waves crashing, cause you couldn't see 'em. That's when I realized the waves sounded just like thunder.

Christmas Eve walk in the woods

Went for a hike in the almost knee deep snow Christmas Eve. Almost time for snowshoes. Snow was extra fluffy, no footprints except mine, little wind, and the snow stopped just long enough to allow me some pictures. Here's Lake Superior sillouetted by big white pines and an old post and beam fence,with the winter light fading fast.

Winter Solstice

So, today is officially the first day of winter, the "winter solstice". This is the day that the axial tilt of the earth is the furthest away from the Sun, at a tilt of over 23degrees.We've talked about how typical it is that even this is the shortest day of winter, how the coldest days are yet to come. Same thing with the summer solstice.

The sun made a brief appearance today, but quickly clouded up and it's snowing again. Looks like we have a potential snow storm on the horizon just in time for Christmas Eve.

almost black and white

Not much color on this day, but it is a color pic.
Nothing like a little freezing drizzle to make snow cling to everything.

Lake Superior steaming

lake superior cooling down

Woke up, -10 F this morning the lake was steaming. We've already had some very cold days to bring down the lake temps and ice is starting to form on the shoreline. We have lots of snow. Everywhere. Winter has taken hold in earnest.

ISU World Cup, Marquette MI 2009

Apolo Ohno on one of the final turns at the Marquette World Cup, December, 2009

I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and look thru images from the ISU short track speedskating World Cup that was held the week of December 11, 2009 in Marquette, MI. We were blessed this year to have two major short track events, the Olympic qualifying trials and the World Cup, within weeks of each other. I wasn't on assignment photographing for anybody. This gave me a chance to take a chance and try some new things. These athletes are going a million miles a second and modern camera technology is getting real good at being able to capture millisecond action. On this particular image, there were a couple races where a sunbeam shone through to the ice, and created some real interesting lighting, to say the least. The light differential caused a backlight situation, and there were a few laps to capture almost like a tv commerical type lighting going on. Here is Apolo, in the lead, full out, skating through the sunbeam. I will get to more images probably after Christmas.

ice pastels

this is the result of heavy freezing spray on Lake Superior

It's nice to finally get a little time to get out a bit and see what's up. After the big storm last week, lots of ice built up on certain parts of the shoreline facing northeast. We got some really cold temps on the backside of the storm, so the ice built up thick and fast. Never lasts long though. Taken at sunset, the ice reflected the colors of the setting sun against the cool colored winter sky.

Big NE from a few days ago

Big waves in front of Marquette Lighthouse, December, 2009

big wave in front of Marquette Upper Harbor Ore Dock, December, 2009

Monster waves, some of the biggest I've ever seen at this location, were to be found on any shore facing northeast on Lake Superior December 9, 2009. Winds this strong out of this direction seem to be rather rare indeed. Lakeshore Drive got a major battering with the "sea wall" being ripped up pretty good. There was freezing spray all the way across the road, lining the chain link fence beyond the bike path. The young Lombardi Poplar lining the drive got hit pretty good with ice.  I wasn't out long, only about an hour before dusk,  but couldn't believe my eyes with the size of the waves along the McCarty's Cove area. Did any of the crew dare to challenge these beasts? Police had most of Lakeshore Drive closed, and I didn't have time to walk in and check triangles, it must have been HUGE.  Ventured out to black rocks, and the freezing spray was all the way to the hillside bending cedars all the way to the ground. Can't imagine what that spot looked like at the height of the storm.

mighty mac

Mackinac Bridge Reflections

We've been over the bridge a lot this year, lots of shows downstate, and most recently went to see family in Cincinnati and do a show over Thanksgiving. Off topic, a long long time ago, I lived in Cincinnati back in the Big Red Machine days, and never really explored the Kentucky side at all. This trip, we spent a lot of time in Covington KY and had a great time, amazed at the mansions along the river, equally amazed at the view from Covington of the two new stadiums in Cincy. Had a great burger and Guiness at Molly Malone's btw ;)

This image is from one of those crossings over the Mackinac Bridge, it was an extremely calm night, calm that didn't last long. If you look closely, you can see ripples in the water that happened part way through the timed exposure adding another dimension to the image. A few minutes later, these reflections of light were gone due to water chop. Now I just need to get back there for a calm day with the "Christmas Lights" on the bridge,,, suprised the ACLU hasn't complained about this.....but then again maybe it's not Christmas Lights but simply a change of light color for a change of pace....? It sure was nice in visiting some of the small Ohio towns on our last trip to see the 10 commandments displayed in front of several courthouses. Only a matter of time I guess before controversy ensues in this day and age of America.....

Still no snow : )

Heavy frost and wetland, Munising, MI

This image was taken a week or so ago the morning after I had been up all night during the Leonid meteor shower. Lots of heavy frost, I even had it on my tripod! I came to realize I really don't have many frost photos-- for one - because by this time of year we usually have a good covering of snow on the ground!
This image is not possible with conventional single exposure photography due to the very large dynamic range in the picture, the camera can't balance out everything in one exposure from the sun to the bright horizon to the backlit shadows. In the past, I have pretty much dismissed HDR, but in this situation I gave it a go. Image was made stacking 6 images at different exposure times and tone mapping with HDR software. So many times, I see some really fake looking HDR. My goal here was to reproduce exactly what I saw that morning. The key in my mind to this process is not to overdo the highlights,(or shadows in the sky) which is so tempting when you see what is revealed in the highlights. This is in line with what I read from a BW photog that studied with Ansel when mentioning in the digital post process the overabundance of photographers sharpening everything to death- why?- because they can. So, verdict on HDR- What do you think?

not quite a "Van Gogh" LOL...

startrails,meteors,aurora,orange is light pollution!-from Munising,brighter stars on left half is Milky Way

This is me having fun with digital. It's an image stack of 30 or so 60 second images taken at very high ISO in attempt to capture meteors. Kind of a novelty thing, not very aesthetic IMHO! Gives me a headache after looking at it too long.... Anyway, this was taken at the height of the leonids a few nights ago, and I only managed to capture one very bright meteor in this whole process... well, at least I got one....Bonus was a very faint aurora at the bottom of the horizon, which was not visible to the naked eye. Over time, it left a funky reflection off Lake Superior. A big reason you don't see images like this frequently is #1. A lot of things can go wrong in the process #2. technology to capture the magnitude of this image is relatively new #3. The process to acquire this image is a little more than just point and shoot with extensive post processing. In attempting photography from this location, I had thought this would be a great spot for night sky photography, was disappointed to see how much light pollution turned up in a relatively dark location.

collaborative effort

In my husband's travels, he spotted this wonderful wetland when driving a couple weeks ago. He took some pics, handheld, and showed them to me. I went back to that area, THREE TIMES, to see what I could come up with using a tripod and different lighting conditions. On the best day of the three- with lighting/no wind, I forgot my cable release... OH WELL. One thing is for sure. Late autumn is beautiful with the golden tamaracks. wetland and third or fourth snow of the season!

tamaracks and turning blueberry bushes

Autumn's last hurrah

OK. I take back the rusty and crusty title of the last post. The past few days, not having given up on photography this autumn season, I've been determined to go out and find color, whatever is left of it, and have put on a great deal of miles in efforts to do so. What I found is some brilliant patches of maples and some very unique scenes occuring late in this 2009 autumn color season in Upper Michigan. Late autumn is really a favorite time for me, with the forest floor being covered with autumn leaves, and, what struck me yesterday was how vibrant and green ferns are in contrast with the freshly falling maple leaves.
Michigan trail hiking in autumn

Upper Peninsula backwoods find, an old cabin
In my ventures, I happened upon this cabin. Immediately the questions came to mind. Who lived here? Was it a hunting camp or did they live here permanently? When was it built? When was it abandoned? What was it like back then? How hard was it to build this cabin back in the day? Just look how nature is reclaming this structure.
For the most part trees are now bare, but suprisingly there still are a few patches of maple that look like they are at early peak closer to the lakeshore. Yesterday I was lucky to finally have a few minutes of cooperation from the weather with flat calm winds- a necessity in long exposure photography. Over the next few days, I'll post a few more from this year's autumn color season.

rusty and crusty

That's how I'd describe this year's autumn color season, for the most part.Definitely not the brilliant fruit loop type autumn as the trees have turned very sporadically due to the absolutely crazy weather conditions. I had such high hopes this summer, which was extremely cool and rainy. Then September happened. Driest on record. Then, October happened....! very cold with freezing temps. Tons of foliage are still on the trees,especially by the lake. Many leaves are still green,(oaks) and simply shriveling around the edges. Went for a drive yesterday, and for the most part, some aspen have a good amount of yellow,, the birch haven't fared so well, being one of the trees that turned earlier and freezing temps caused leaves to turn brown. Maples vary widely, with a majority of them a golden orange. Reds are very hard to come by this year. It's not a wash though, with the recent yellowing of the aspen and maples turning hillsides a mixture of burnt orange hinted by some brilliant golden stands of maple. Photography wise, photographers have their work cut out for them this year, with a large number of low pressure systems sweeping through the area creating many rainy,sometimes snowy, DARK, windy days, like... today!
It's funny when we do art shows, we have a small image displayed of a single tamarack surrounded by other pine species. The tamarack is a pine tree that turns golden yellow in autumn before loosing it's needles. Many people that visit our booth at the art shows have never seen these trees and think I intentionally altered the tree yellow. From what I understand, the tamarack is found as far south as West Virginia, but it's a handful of northern states. Right now, these are the trees that stand out the most, their contrast is spectacular against the black spruce. If you are lucky to find them in a bog with blueberry bushes, all the better, as those blueberry leaves are turning red. Snow cover forecast today should create some interesting scenes in these parts, as long as we don't get totally dumped on, a nice dusting would be plenty!

tamarack trees, upper peninsula of michigan

2010 will be here before you know it!

And we've got a great calendar to help you keep track of next year!
northern lights aurora borealis calendar 2010 front

northern lights aurora borealis calendar 2010 back

Avery Color Studios contacted us to use our images to produce the Northern Lights Calendar 2010, the northern lights aurora borealis photography of Shawn and Brian Malone.
Check your local gift/bookstore for availability or- you can order them online here.
The photography in this calendar is from the brilliant off the charts northern lights displays from several years ago when we were at the solar maximum, the top of the 11 year cycle. Inside is a scientific description next to every image explaining how northern lights happen and what determines their color. So, not only do you get the images, the information included is very educational! Get 'em before they are gone! The quality of this calendar is top notch in every facet of reproduction as Avery did a great job, and is a chance for you to pick up our best northern lights images for an unbeatable price!

the Olympians are here-US Speedskating Olympic qualifying 2009, Marquette, MI

If you've never had a chance, you gotta check it out. It's speedskating, one of the most exciting sports there is, IMHO. Marquette, Michigan is home to the USOEC, partnered with NMU. Berry Events Center has been home to the Olympic qualifying for speedskating for at least the last two winter Olympics, I don't know the history of the sport before that. I started photographing these skaters in 2005, with some of that work from the Olympic qualifying ending up in the Torino media guide and NBC Olympics coverage. This time around, I will not be able to attend Friday and Saturday's races due to previous commitments. However, I did get a chance to sneak in last night and grab some shots. I forgot how extremely difficult it is to photograph speedskating in relatively low light conditions. Lot's of duds, but a few keepers. Maybe at the worlds, which also will be in Marquette in November, I will be a little better prepared. Here's a couple shots from last night. I hope to get more up on my website soon. For an overview of standings, go to US Speedskating website.

apolo ohno turning on the burners

apolo ohno in a familiar spot, ahead of the pack