4am start to get to my fellow photog buddys house for 4.45am and then on to the north beach of the Fort Sheridan Preserve. Not much traffic on the interstate at that time of the day, so we were there for 5.22am, given how foggy it was, it was pitch black darkness, luckily Starbucks was open, so we warmed up with a cup o’ Joe!

It was still dark when we got to the preserve, but we walked into the preserve from the carpark anyway, luckily Mark had remembered his head torch which provided us some light while clambering over the ice. If you wanna go to this preserve, park in the parking lot at the end of cliff road and walk down the road, you’ll come to an iron gate, you can walk around the gate and continue down the road towards the preserve. I think there is actually a path, but with the amount of snow on the ground, its easier and safer to walk down the road. The shoreline is not far from the parking lot, maybe 1/4 of a mile at the most.

Again, it was still dark once we got the shoreline, but we’d grown used to the darkness and could make out where the water breaks were etc. We had a walk up and down the shoreline, there isn’t much to walk up and down, at least when the snow is there, so we quickly decided on the best spot for ‘sunrise’ and setup the tripods. We started with a few frames, but even with no filters we were looking at the 60-120second exposure range, very tricky. Soon and quickly things brightened up though.

We were greeted with some awesome fog and completely still lake water, I wasn’t sure if the lake would still be frozen or not given the warmer tempratures we’ve had, but they were pretty much ice free, I suspect the stillness was caused by ice further out causing a damming effect and blocking any waves. The fog was fantastic, thre was enough visibility for some contrast between the water and ice, but not enough for you to see any horizon line.

I’ve visited this place three times in the last three weeks, each time it has been completely different, well worth a visit if you’re dedicated enough to get up early. As the preserve is on the westside of the lake, the best time is sunrise… even if there isn’t one .

More photos can be seen on my flickr set here