March 30, 2014

First  a special thanks to my friend Az for accompanying me to this place. This place was a complete mystery for us. Never walked 2 miles on sand to reach a light house. Particularly if you were the only one to be wandering around that place at that time. 

As always I want to capture the sunset in the back drop of the lighthouse. Its about 30 to 45 min north of Muskegon,MI. GPS will tell you to stop well ahead than the actual parking, so drive till you find a road after GPS's end point.Now get ready to walk a good 2 miles to reach the light house. As usual, I was planned to wait for the golden hour to capture the light house in a well lit crimson background. Since it takes 2 miles to get back and we were the only humans to spot there, we decided to get back before the sun settles down. 

We visited the place in end of march, by which the weather was still cold, may be by summer the place would be flocking with people and we might have company to walk back in the dark. This place is a camping ground and hence there is no fear of wild animals but on our way back we did spot deer trying to come out to the sea after dark. 

Dont forget to carry light with you, it gets dark pretty quickly. Apart from the light house, if your adventure parts kicks you, you can skip the defined road and cover the walk back on the dunes. It was total fun and it will be great if you go as a gang. 

Coming to capturing the light house, there can be numerous compositions one can try. But my best is to grab my super wide angle lens and step back to light house with light house and sea in front of you. There was a little elevated dune which helped for the view and to have better effect try a vertical panorama and later stitch it in Photoshop. I tired for a long exposure but the sun was right in the front and I had to face the issue with flares as well. 

Settled with panorama and the resulting image after post processing is below.