It was a warm, sunny and beautiful day when I picked up Forrest (friend and photographer) at 7:30 am to begin the November Photography Workshop. As I was meandering through rush hour traffic, Forrest was giving me a commentary on the sunrise. Wished we were up at Lake Superior to capture it. Soon we arrived at Hinckley to meet up with a couple of my students, Andy and Victor. The next destination was Banning State Park. The ranger was really helpful, pointing out the rapids and trails. We spent an hour, then headed for Jay Cooke State Park via MN 23. The St. Louis River was down a bit but it still was beautiful with the water gushing up and over the rocks. I made a bad mistake not having my heavier tripod with me to capture silky looking water using my heavy long zoom lens. The minor shake by the mirror caused double/blurred images. Should have walked back to the car for the tripod.
Dondrea, having a later start joined us and we stop for lunch at Grandma's in Duluth. I brought the group out to Park Point to show them the beauty of the sandy beaches, pointing out to them that the landscape will change drastically in a month or so. We made another stop at Stoney Point, catching the waves, the fishing hut and other things. As the sun headed down to the horizon, we got to the resort. Checked into our condo/townhome. The last two students, Jennifer and Luis arrived around 8pm.
Thankfully sunrise is a bit later than in the height of summer. We drove to Gooseberry Falls State Park, towards the mouth of the Gooseberry river, and waited for the sun to rise. We were the only people at this spot. I reminded my students on the finer points on capturing a sunrise image that stands out from an ordinary one. The light was just fabulous after the sunrise. Waves, rocks, splashes, bare birch trees, more rock formations were being recorded onto our SD and CF cards. Finally after 4 hours we felt that we had exhausted the area and decided to head to Split Rock State Park, specifically Ellingson Island. I went around to make sure they were capturing the shots that they saw, helping and reminding them of what they have learned. Forrest also was a great help with my students giving them hints and tips on how to shoot. The biggest thing this weekend with the students was the ND (neutral density), and polarizing filters. These 2 filters allowed them to have "silky" water in the waterfalls and waves. Something clicked in them and they got some fabulous images.
After a couple more hours we had to leave because we were hungry. We download our images onto the laptops during lunch. There were three or more hours before sunset, some of us rested, some worked on their laptops and Jennifer and Luis went up further east or north to buy some maple syrup.
Gooseberry Falls was the meeting place at 4 pm. Some have not seen it before. It was perfect lighting to photograph the waterfalls. It was in shadows and the light was fading. There were not many other tourist as in the summer time. The shots were very good from there. We then heading to the same beach as in the morning to catch the sunset glow.... The weather did not cooperate, a large bank of grey clouds came over the horizon blocking what might have been a great sunset.
We headed back to the condo to prepare the meal and the slideshow. The two main dishes were lasagna and ravioli by Dondrea, wonderful home made wines by Forrest, salad and bread by Jennifer and Luis, snacks by Andy and Victor and 3 buck chuck wines by me. We lost Forrest and Andy for about 45 minutes and when they returned, they showed us some great images that they shot before driving back. Everyone had about 10 to 20 images for the slide show and I quickly put it together on iPhoto. I need a better slide show software!!!
The weathermen had predicted a partly sunny day on Sunday but it turned out to be completely overcast. We packed up and headed for home, but with ideas of stopping at different spots to shoot on our own.
It was a great feeling to see that these students of mine were so proud of their images. The slideshow was played at least three or four times over. I am trying hard to transfer it to iMovie, so that they have a moment of the weekend.
