It's always interesting for me when I go to one of the lights along Lake Michigan to watch the other people there with cameras. I feel badly for people with point and shoot cameras that decide that it's dark and dictate that there will be a flash used... albeit in a futile attempt to light up a lighthouse possibly several hundred yards out in Lake Michigan on one of the piers. I also feel badly for people there with more sophisticated cameras who pack it in the moment that the sun dips below the horizon, mistakenly thinking that the sunset is over. IT ISN'T!!!

In the last 10 days or so, I've made 3 trips to photograph at St Joseph and two to South Haven. Without a doubt, I'm always the last photographer to quit shooting for the night. You can photograph easily 10-20 minutes after the sun is below the horizon, and with a little more presistance, you can stretch that to 30 or 40 minutes after sunset some nights. Yes, exposures get long, but slide film responds very well indeed to long exposures and small aperatures anyway, giving you beautifully saturated colors. The following pair of slides were shot last Tuesday at St. Joe probably 30 minutes after the sun had set. There was a lone fisherman at the end of the pier and a lone photographer still photographing from the water's edge. The fisherman is just to the right of the light almost lost in the solitude and dim light of the deepening dusk. Both of these were 30 sec exposures at f32 using a 300 mm f4 lens and were shot on Fuji Velvia slide film. I hope you enjoy these two images and will think about shooting later next time you have the occasion to photograph at sunset.





Gary

The photo below was shot the same evening, albeit much later, as the previous two photos. This was shot from the top of the sand dunes just to the north of the north pier there at St. Joseph looking across the channel to the red pier marker at the end of the south pier. I was curious to see if there was enough light there to silhouette the catwalk that runs out the north pier as well as to pick up the fishermen there fishing off the south pier. The streaks of light were from the Labor Day boaters returning to the various marinas along the river there in St Joe and Benton Harbor. Sort of late night rush hour on the river. Anyway, this is a 2 minute exposure at f10 on Fuji Velvia. Normally, I'd shoot something like this at around f32 to be sure everything was in focus since you can't really see to focus well at night and autofocus doesn't work well either this late. But, a rough calculation for f32 gives you about a 15 minute exposure and this was the last shot of the night and I was about ready to head home and call it a day. This was shot about an hour after sunset and you can still see tinges of reds in the sky although they're very faint.



Gary

Those are great, Gary- thats one thing I love about being up on the lakes, it seems total darkness will never come. Here in the hills, when the sun goes down it's all over!