I joined eight other photographers for John Gregor’s Winter Wonderland; From Concept to Exhibit workshop beginning on January 31, 2019. Our goal was to photograph, edit, post-process, print, and frame images, all captured during the workshop. For the third consecutive year, Kurt Mead and the entire staff at Tettegouche State Park gave us the opportunity to hang our photographic art in their visitors center. The park is located along Minnesota’s stunning North Shore of Lake Superior.
Winters on Lake Superior’s North Shore are bitterly cold and harsh offering difficult conditions for adventurous photographers. This year, however, Mother Nature had something special in store for us: the start of our workshop coincided with the arrival of a deep polar vortex. Our first morning in the field greeted us with a temperature of minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit; the second sunrise offered minus twenty-degree temperatures. By the third morning, temperatures rose to a relatively balmy minus 6 degrees. This challenging weather created a unique opportunity for photographers to create stunning images, to capture the beauty and wonder of nature amidst harsh subzero conditions on the shore.
My group of photographers began at Black Beach near Silver Bay, Minnesota, where photographers can work right on the shoreline or they can hike to overlooking cliffs. The rocky shoreline was ice-covered and the lake’s edge was frozen. The cliffs behind were draped in ice and snow. The distant horizon across Lake Superior was thick with sea smoke, injecting a sense of mystery in many scenes.
Frozen Wonderland
Later that afternoon we visited the icy rock beach at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. The wind had picked up, but conditions were perfect to capture great images of one of Lake Superior’s most iconic spots. Built on a 130-foot rocky cliff, the 54-foot tall octagonal lighthouse has provided safe passage to ships since 1910. Frozen shelf rock and sweeping clouds provided idyllic conditions for creative photography.
Ice Blue
On our second morning, we visited the rocky shoreline of Tettegouche State Park, Silver Bay, Minnesota. Here again, we witnessed winter sky conditions and abundant snow and ice. Tettegouche State Park is 9,300 acres containing the mouth of the Baptism River along with its falls and cascades. Within the park’s bounds are a large stand of northern hardwood forest and many semi-mountainous views. Working the park’s one-mile stretch of Lake Superior shoreline proved to be all we needed on this day to capture wondrous images of winter on the North Shore.
Tettegouche Shores
We spent our final morning shooting at Sugarloaf Cove State Natural Area, near Schroeder, Minnesota. Sugarloaf Cove itself is a 27-acre site on Lake Superior adjacent to the Sugarloaf Cove Scientific and Natural Area. The breathtaking views of Lake Superior from scenic Sugarloaf Point were our main destination. Standing on 1.1-billion-year-old rocks under stormy skies and next to choppy lake ice brought out wintery feelings only the north country can evince.
Marine Blue
Upon finishing our fieldwork, my group reconvened with the other participants to post-process our images and select two favorites each to print for the exhibit. Once printed, each image was mounted, matted, and framed for hanging before we headed to the Tettegouche visitor center. Amidst a collegial atmosphere, we finished hanging our “Polar Vortex Exhibition” with cheers and applause from the center’s staff. This workshop is one of the very few in the country where a photographer can work in the field, process their fieldwork, and then print, frame, and display the final product all within a few days.
Please join us on March 1, 2019, at 7:00 PM CST for the exhibit’s closing ceremony, where you can meet the photographers and instructors and enjoy our creations.
The photographers: Ron Brown, Bryan Couch, Bobbi Hansen, Christy Illig, Gary Olejniczak, Nick Olejniczak, Laura Seifert, Jim Schnortz, Sara Tyler.
A final shot from the Polar Vortex.
Black Beach