Tag Archives: MN North: Amity

Amity: A Winter Wonderland Photographic Tour (free book)

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This past Winter has the most number of sub-zero degree days in history (fahrenheit). With Friday’s snow we are over 130 inches for the season, and have moved into the third snowiest winter in history for northern Minnesota. Thus, it’s time to publish my first book which will take you on a magical tour of this winter wonder which I call “Amity”.

Amity, will be published and available via Amazon in approximately seven days. However, I am giving away a pdf version of my book via NorthStarNerd.Org (my other web site). Here is the book’s description:

The Lake Superior wilderness of northern Minnesota is rustically beautiful. Amity invites you to explore this region’s winter wonderland through the eyes of landscape and nature photographer Rich Hoeg. The word “Amity” comes from a small stream that roars down the hill to Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota.

This winter I was flattered to see organizations such as Fox News and the Weather Channel pick up and use my ice cave photographs in national news articles on the Apostle Islands Sea Caves. In addition, being one of the few finalists in the Lake Superior Magazine annual photo contest was an honor.

I hope you enjoy Amity.

Here is just one photo from Amity. This photo of Split Rock Lighthouse was taken shortly before dawn on April 18, 2014. Winter is finally starting to give up here grip on the Northland. (click to view photo at full resolution)

Split-Rock-Dawn-2

Day 092: Low Light Bird Photography – Goldeneyes Take Alarm

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Today dawned ugly. In short, the best course of action would be to snuggle up in front on the fireplace. Here in northern Minnesota, we are experiencing a late season snowstorm with upwards of six inches of snow predicted. When you add the snow to the wind, and the remaining snow and ice, why would one want to venture outside in this Lake Superior region?!

Answer: To improve one’s photography skills!

Please understand that birds have this nasty habit of never remaining still, even when you believe they are at rest. While some folks find that aperture priority is the recommended starting point for bird photography, I disagree. Birds are high energy athletes constantly on the move. Thus, I start with the premise that one needs a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second for fast birds, and 1/640th of a second for slower (big) birds. It is worth getting to know your custom settings. For today’s photographs I was using total manual settings. This meant I was scaling my ISO up to my camera’s top setting (3200) and often using a expsoure setting of 1/1000th of a setting. I then forced the aperture to F4.0 and a white balance of “cloudy”. Did I mention it was dark out, and often snowing hard?! Thus, I needed to increase the sensitivity of my sensor by increasing the ISO speed. After all, regardless of the bad weather, the birds did not sit still!

These two photos of the Goldeneyes were taken at the exact moment they saw me, and were not impressed with the sight!

The other two photographs are of the waterfall across the street from my home. The State of Minnesota was actually out measuring the water flow of Amity Creek in the middle of the snowstorm. You are looking at 432 cubic feet per second! Last week before the spring meltdown really got under way the flowage rate was 160 cubic feet per second.

Sound the Alarm! Goldeneyes Take Flight
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Amity Creek – The Deeps (above and below)
The-Deeps-Snowstorm-Above The-Deeps-Snowstorm-Below

Day 091: Red Shafted Flicker

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The migration for certain birds has finally reached northern Minnesota. While waterfowl are finding the paths north blocked due to the lack of ice free water, now that a large amount of our snow has finally melted certain “early arrivals” are working their way through the area including Red-Shafted Flickers. These woodpeckers spend a lot of their time on the ground, but startle easily. This bird was near me, but flew up into this nearby tree. Twas a photographic challenge … a cloudy day with brown (the Flicker’s plumage) on a brown background (bare tree branches).

091-Birds-365-Flicker-Finale