I recently had one of my portrait clients ask if I still do “Fine Art Photography” “like the downtown Grand Rapids pictures” I’ve done in the past. This was a friendly little slap in the face to remind me not only to keep doing what brought me to this career but to share it as well! “Of course I do!” In fact, every January I join my business partner and amazing photographer Ben Pancoast in Benton Harbor for the annual Wedding World Wedding Show and we’ve made it a habit to go out and take some photos after the show. Both years have yielded some really fun shots but this year I went a bit earlier to capture a bit more than twilight.
I don’t EVER recommend someone walking on the pier in the winter because it is SO dangerous. I have been fortunate to stay safe every time but the entire time I’m out there I keep my headset in my ear and someone on the phone to ensure if something were to happen I wouldn’t disappear without a trace. This year, I pushed it a bit too far by going ALL the way to the end and what a dangerous treat it was.
I was surprised how the end of the pier had so many different layers of ice still attached after a big thaw that occurred in January and sort of thought it looked like a big sheep dog proudly standing at the end of the pier. This grouping shows the three different vantage points starting with looking back to the east in the first shot, to the north west in the second, and north east in the last. It’s very interesting to me how the ice patterns changed so much.
Although none of these shots were done for anything more than documenting the landscape, I was very pleased with the mood and feeling each different angle brought!
Here is a shot Ben Pancoast took of me shooting the ice line north of the pier in January 2009. This is one of the greatest parts (to me) of shooting with another photographer since they often capture really interesting moments where you don’t even know just how focused you are while shooting!
by admin