Was lucky enough to have the opportunity of making the most of the long weekend, celebrated Valentines Day on Saturday with Stephanie and then met up with flickr contact Andrew who I’d met the week before and had been following his photo stream for a while.

I set off from my house at 4.30am, collected Andrew on the way, then hit I55 towards Chicago, next stop Michigan City Lighthouse, Indiana. We made it there for approx 6.30am, bang on schedule for the sunrise, not a minute too late actually as the sun was already on the move. Sunrise is a difficult subject on the south & eastern side of Lake Michigan as it rises over the land rather than over the water, and most often, the skyline of the land is not something you want in a photo in this case! The Michigan City lighthouse is great for sunrise however as you can get to the sun lit side of it quite easily, this time of year there is so much ice that you can happily walk well out into what is the lake in the summer to get some unique angles on the lighthouse…

Once the sun was starting to become harsh, we made a move and headed for Big Red in Holland, Michigan. The weather looked good, but everything we’d read was telling us it should be cloudy, though experience told us that the weather forecasts are often not accurate, especially after looking closely at the radar map the night before, still we felt we needed to move while we had the light.

We jetted up the interstate into Michigan and northwards along the east side of Lake Michigan, slowing only for the Highway Patrol . Three miles from Big Red and it was starting to cloud over, two miles from Big Red and it was a complete snow blizzard white out, so close! We made a uturn and headed back south towards Saint Josephs, we felt we were in a bit of a race now as the clouds where moving south.

We beat the weather to South Haven, but the subject was a little less interesting that Michigan City, very little ice also compared to the previous year, still we made a few photos then hit a diner for lunch, we knew we were not gonna outrun the weather for much longer, so just went with it…

Next and final stop was Saint Josephs which is a very similar design to Michigan City, by now the clouds had caught us, not so bad though as there was some texture in them, Black & White photos seemed like an obvious choice. Ironically other than the clouds, Saint Josephs was quite civilized, there was little ice, the concrete break water was dry, a little windy, but actually quite pleasant shooting conditions. There was plenty of movement in the clouds for long exposures also…

From here we headed home in time for dinner in the end, though we nearly got stuck in Michigan, we had got chatting away and I didn’t notice the gas warning gauge, luckily we were only a couple of miles form a gas station, I think we had 1/2 a gallon left in the tank! A long day but a pretty productive day, next time Big Red, next time!!!