Flash Point: Ken Scott’s toughest Great Lakes photo

Apr 12 2012 Great Lakes Echo 2 Comments

We asked Great Lakes photographers to send us their toughest Great Lakes shots. Ken Scott of Ken Scott Photography sent us this photo.

South Manitou Lighthouse

Lit by a full moon, this is a stack of 350, 30-second exposures.

The hard part was getting the timing to work out so I could travel out to the island when there would be a full enough moon to light the landscape and no clouds to interfere with the shoot. It was a crap shoot and took a few trips out to get the timing the way I wanted it.

The easy part was hanging out on the beach under a full moon!

The interesting part (for me) is how technology has changed and with it, so have techniques. I used to do long exposures on film to get star trails, but if there was any man-made lighting, like street lamps, it would over-expose that part of the image and many times make the whole image unusable. Now with digital, you can take shorter exposures keeping lights better exposed and stack many photos to get the star trail effect without blowing out highlights. The time lapse of all the images to make this photo are here.

-Ken Scott

Check out past Flash Point contributors.

Flashpoint is an occasional feature where professional photographers explain challenging images they've taken of the Great Lakes regional environment. More here. Suggest a photographer for inclusion by emailing greatlakesecho@gmail.com. Photographers are encouraged to nominate their own work. Echo will link to your website.