A Rare View-- A Day Spent on Top of the South Haven Lighthouse

Peering over the lighthouse's beacon at the Friends Good Will in the distance

   Every once in a while, an opportunity to cross off a "bucket list" comes along.  August 7th was just such a day. 

    If you have followed my work for any amount of time, you have realized that I spend a lot of my free time photographing scenes of the lighthouse in South Haven, Mi.  Growing up in the area and spending time as a kid on the pier, I always wondered what the view looked like from the top of the lighthouse.  So, two years ago, I added seeing inside the South Haven lighthouse and taking photos from the top to my bucket list.  On Thursday the 6th, the opportunity to cross of an item on my list came to me in the form of a text from a fellow photographer.  

The first ever Lighthouse Sit

  

She was invited to take part in the first ever Lighthouse Sit.  An event created by the Historical Association of South Haven (H.A.S.H.) during the start of the annual Blueberry Festival to raise awareness and funds to aid in restoring South Haven's iconic lighthouse.  Unfortunately for her she could not stay for her entire 2-hour shift and she needed someone to fill-in for her.   How could I say no to a friend in need, right?  Not only would I get a chance to be inside the lighthouse but also hopefully help raise some money for the restoration efforts.  Please browse through the images and if you can, donate to H.A.S.H. to help them restore the lighthouse.  I will provide links at the end of post on how you can contact HASH and make a donation.

   Upon entering the lighthouse, it was easily apparent the see the lighthouse was in need of a serious overhaul.  The white  interior gave contrast to paint peeling from the wood work and the stains of metal rusting were to be seen everywhere in lighthouse's interior.

View from the ground floor at the rusted steel
ladder that gives entrance to the
second level of the lighthouse.

  Rusted rivets,  bulged seams and holes in the metal flooring show the urgency of the restoration efforts 

Holes in the second floor as seen from below

Holes rusted through the second floor

Corrosion growing between the riveted metal seams

This small ladder on the second floor leads to a small opening to gain access to the third floor beacon room.

The beacon

I must admit,  I never would have thought the beacon to be so small.  I don't think that it is much more than 12 inches in diameter

The Spire on top of the lighthouse's roof

I have countless images of the lighthouse and every one the spire appears to be a smooth sphere.  But being this close to it tells a different tale.  It too has seen better days

Corrosion around the metal frames that hold the glass
in place in the beacon room

The folks that get the nod to do the restoration will have their work cut out for them.  It was really hard to find and area of the lighthouse that did not need attention in some form or another

Ok,  Now that I have depressed you all with scenes depicting the state of the lighthouse, here are some images that hope you will enjoy from my second visit to the lighthouse in the evening on Friday night.

A light rain passed through a gave us a small double rainbow.

The Friends Good Will Heading out for its sunset cruise

A Fishing boat coming in

The Day's Catch

A parting shot before making my descent back to ground level--  a sunset on Big Blue

If you are able to donate to the lighthouse fund, please do!  Your efforts will help ensure South Haven's lighthouse will be around for generations to come.  

LINKS:

Historical Association of South Haven Facebook page

www.facebook.com/historicalassociationofsouthhaven?fref=ts

Historical Association of South Haven GoFundMe link:

http://www.gofundme.com/lkezkg

New HASH website:

http://historyofsouthhaven.org/

You can visit any of these links to get information on the restoration progress and how to donate.

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Winter's End?

With the temperatures in SW Michigan breaking into the upper 40's for the first time, in which seems like months, staying out on the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan was enjoyable to say the least!  Gone were the bone-chilling northern winds and snow as were the insulated overalls, heavy gloves and ski mask.  Just me and my camera capturing which will be (hopefully) the beginning of the end of wintry images in Michigan this year.  Bring on Spring!!  But until then, let's enjoy the end of winter :D  

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Practice Makes Perfect-- The Art of Post Processing

I call it the "art" of post processing, as it is definitely not a science.  

I have read several books, watched countless hours 

of tutorials of Youtube on how to process

my camera's RAW files to create the best images possible and just when I think I have it 

all figured out, I learn something new that changes everything.

For me, trial and error seems to be the best teacher.  I have learned many things in the last 

couple of years and believe me,

it's because I have made countless mistakes taking and processing my digital images.

Case in point:

I was quite happy with the end result of this panoramic image taken this past weekend. Happy enough to post it on my Facebook page.  I have been practicing and refining

 the proper techniques with  my camera and tripod to be able to capture the several properly 

exposed and aligned images needed to create a robust, stitched panoramic image.

My first attempt processing the 6 image stitched shot (click to enlarge)

I admit that I was not 100% happy with this image but I could not figure out

what bothered me about it.  It wasn't until I decided to walk through all the processing

steps that I stumbled upon the one little detail that I had overlooked.  

One small adjustment that I had not made.  

Finding this one overlooked detail was all the encouragement I needed to start processing the 

RAW file all over again.  (Just a tip.  If you take your photography seriously, you need to

be shooting in the RAW format---it allows so many freedoms in post processing 

to save an image)

Same 6 image stitch after making needed adjustments to the white balance
(click to enlarge)

This is the reprocessed image.  The only difference is the white balance between

the six original images.  In my haste to take the six images 

before the light started to dissipate,  I neglected to lock down the white balance setting in my 

camera, it was set to auto.  That little difference in the exposure of the images made a huge 

impact on the final result.  The colors are now clean and the details in the shadows now sharp.

Just another lesson learned :) 

When lightning strikes...

My time as a photographer

 has been short but pretty sweet at times.  The evening I caught these images was definitely one of those sweet times!  

I was on the shores

 of Lake Michigan in South Haven hoping to catch a glimpse of a partial solar eclipse happening at sunset on the evening of May 20,2012.  I was not sure what to expect but I managed to come away with a couple good images of the eclipse.

What happened next, 

I was totally unprepared for, the perfect storm!!  As the sun faded

into the horizon, a thunderstorm started to roll in.  Everyone on the beach, after seeing the eclipse of the sun and the storm coming in, started to leave.  Only myself and another photographer stayed to greet the approaching storm.  I was eager to get

 some experience catching a lightning bolt on camera.  I caught couple images in the 

past but nothing out of the ordinary.

The winds and rains stayed 

away from the beach allowing us to photograph the amazing cloud to ground lightning.  I made several feeble attempts at capturing the bolts.  Luckily for me, the

other photographer, who had  decades of experience, took pity on me and gave

 me some advice on shooting lightning.  Thanks to him I was able to 

catch some great images that night.  The lightning images taken on that fateful evening

pushed myself and my photography into a new direction.  And for that,

I will always be grateful.