The winds of November

As Gordon Lightfoot sang in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it's not a good idea to be on the Great Lakes "when the gales of November come slashing." They came slashing with a vengeance last weekend as my wife and I traveled to Kewaunee, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan.

On the 30th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald's sinking, winds of 30-50 mph whipped up large waves along the coast last Saturday. Temperatures in the 40s seemed even colder in the force of the wind. Storm clouds were rolling in and I was working very quickly to get my camera set up on the beach in Kewaunee before the sun disappeared for good that afternoon. I wanted to catch the remains of the old pier posts in front of the current pier while showing the fury of the waves in a one-second exposure. I took several frames while standing upwind of my tripod with my coat extended to form a makeshift windbreak to try to keep the camera steady, hoping to get one that I would be pretty satisfied with.

Some post-processing work in PhotoShop to adjust curves and do some dodging and burning complete the image of an angry lake and the resolute steadfastness of the lighthouse.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2005 James Jordan.