If you're looking for a unique holiday gift or something to enhance your living quarters, Art at Ramsey beckons! With over 70 artists selling their handmade and artistic creations at the Twin Cities' premier holiday art show, there is something for everyone. For the second year, I will have my photography on display and for sale. This event will also be my final on-site sale for the year, and I will be offering special discounts on pieces and presentations that I am retiring or that contain minor flaws.

Art at Ramsey is this Saturday, December 1 from 10am - 5pm and is located in Ramsey Junior High School between Summit and Grand Avenues, west of Snelling Avenue. More information is available at www.artistscircle.org.

Every 10th of November, Split Rock Lighthouse's beacon, as most Split Rock aficionados know, is lighted in memorial of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes ore freighter that became a victim of Lake Superior's wrath on that day in 1975. All 29 aboard were never seen again.

I've stood on these shores on many a November 10th evenings in recent years and the weather on this year's anniversary most closely resembled what I imagine the conditions were like on that fateful day in 1975. Cold, wind-blown rain and mist accompanied several foot rollers crashing into the rocky shore.

Photographing in these conditions is, not surprisingly, also difficult. In between the inevitable episodes of cold mist gathering on the front of my lens, I managed to capture the rare combination of a lighted Split Rock and a rough Lake Superior.

"October Gale"

When I am making photographs on the North Shore in early October, my usual and primary concern is capturing the ephemeral beauty of the northern autumn.

On the afternoon of October 4th, my attention was abruptly shifted to Lake Superior's rapidly changing mood. In a matter of hours, calm waters were transformed into a fury of several-foot rollers brought on by gale-force winds in the range of 40-50 miles per hour. Winds from the southwest meant areas near Grand Marais were experiencing the brunt of this force due to the southerly-facing shoreline. Standing on the rocky shore and pummeled by spray from the violent breakers crashing ashore, I felt an incredible amount of exhilaration, being so close to Superior's wrath, as I made several exposures with my mostly plastic bag-wrapped camera.

"Lighthouse Breaker"

A few of the breakers even reached heights above Grand Marais' breakwall lighthouse. On a typical day, people can be found standing next to this lighthouse. That was not an option that afternoon.

"Stormy Evening" - Artist's Point

The stormy conditions continued that evening and into the night. As evening approached, a bit of sunshine filtered through the clouds in the distance, making for one of the most memorable scenes of the day.

The Rocky Mountains traverse much of the western interior of North America, but few of its peaks match the beauty of the Grand Tetons. The highest of the distinctly sharp peaks of the Tetons exceed an elevation of 14,000 feet, or 7000 feet above the valley of Jackson Hole. While this mountain range alone is magnificent, icons of the Old West, including near-century-old barns, chapels, and buckrail fence dot the valley landscape.

One of the most iconic of these landmarks is the historic Thomas A. Moulton Barn. This barn is part of the Mormon Row Historic District, a cluster of homesteads, including barns, corrals, and drainage ditches, built by Mormon settlers during the early part of the 20th century. The barn is all that remains of Moulton's homestead.

One day this past spring, as the early morning light from the rising sun first struck the Teton peaks and barn, I made this panorama by taking eight consecutive vertical exposures and later blending them digitally to create a very high resolution image. I could print this image on canvas to a length of 14 feet with little loss of detail. If you look very closely, you'll see a couple of horses in the far distance drinking from the stream on the left.

Another morning at Grand Teton National Park brought me to the banks of the Snake River at Schwabacher Landing. This particular location along the river is basically a beaver pond and typically calm, offering nice reflections of the Cathedral group of the Tetons. Again, I was rewarded with the best light just as the first rays of sunlight hit the peaks of the mountains.

I was drawn to this composition due to the many forms of symmetry present. The most obvious element of symmetry is due to the reflection in the river. There is also an approximate symmetry vertically down the center involving the peaks of the Cathedral group as well as the arrangement of the trees on the opposite bank of the river. Particularly interesting is the inverse relationship of the apparent size of these trees to the distant peaks moving from the center of the image to the side edges.

I captured many more photographs of this majestic national park this past spring and look forward to sharing more in the near future . . .