Wind Point Lighthouse, lake Michigan, Racine WI

This image was made by taking 3 horizontal pictures and stitching them together vertically. This allowed me to shoot the lighthouse at closer range and create a perspective that looks much more natural that what you get with a wide angle lens. To read more about this image, see my post on SBDigitalArts: The Art of Visualization

These first pictures were taken down by the harbor in the same area I took the snow volcano pictures last week. I was standing on the beach and zooming in on the action. That’s all ice that you see out there, even the dark, dirty stuff.  The temperature at this time was 18 and the windchill was 7.

This second set was taken a little to the north and looks back on the area above. Though I was close to the action in these pictures, I was perfectly safe standing on the sea wall outside of the splash zone. In this area the water would bounce off of the ice shelf and slam into the waves coming in. Where the outgoing wave met the incoming wave, huge explosions would take place. Notice the wave in the background of the first image.

I also shot video of all this action. I’ll get it posted sometime this week. The video really shows how amazing this show was.

To see more Lake Michigan Lighthouses please visit my Lake Michigan Lighthouse Page

The first lighthouse is the Cana Island Lighthouse.  This lighthouse was built in the 1860′s and has a Third Order Fresnel Lens. The tower is 95′ tall. This is the first lighthouse that we’ve climbed the tower on.

These next two lighthouses are found on islands at the top of the Door Peninsula. The first is the Plumb Island Range Light and the second is the Pilot Island Lighthouse. We were at the tip of the peninsula when I shot these.

This next lighthouse is the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse overlooking Green Bay  on the west side of the peninsula. It was built in 1866.

The last two lighthouses are the Algoma North Pierhead Light and the Kewaunee South Pierhead Light. The lighting was horrible this morning, so these shots aren’t the greatest. I really want to go back and shoot the Algoma light at sunset.

We’ve now seen 26 lighthouses on Lake Michigan. We’ve seen all of the lights from Chicago north to the top of the Door Peninsula. We still have three lights to see in Door County. Two of them are on islands, the Chambers Island Light in Green Bay and the Pottawatomie Light on Rock Island. The other is the Sherwood Point Lighthouse. Sherwood Point is on the peninsula, but it is only open to the public one weekend a year because the Coast Guard uses it for residences.

I don’t know if I’ve shared these links with you guys before, but here are two of the sites I use to find the lighthouses and get the history for them.

•  Lake Michigan Lighthouse Map
• Seeing the Light: Lighthouses of Lake Michigan

I had more sites, but I think I deleted my folder that I had them bookmarked in.
We also have a couple of books about Lake Michigan Lighthouses.

I know it’s been awhile since I did a lighthouse post, but now that fall colors are over, I should be able to find the time to do a few more lighthouse post.

Just to much to do and not enough time

All of the work on this image was done in Adobe Lightroom 2.1 working with the original RAW file.  After exporting the JPG, I made a slight contrast adgustment in Photoshop.

The tower is 46 feet high and at one time had a Sixth Order Fresnel lens, but it has been removed.

This light has quite a history to it. It has been moved and rebuilt a number of times. To read more on the history of the Racine Breakwater Lighthouse you can visit this link: Seeing the Light – Racine North Breakwater Lighthouse

Milwaukee Breakwater Lighthouse

Built in 1926, the breakwater light is located on the breakwater to the Milwaukee Harbor. The tower is  53 feet tall and and contains a Fourth Order Fresnel Lens. The lighthouse sits on a pier 20 feet above the water.

Milwaukee Pier Head Lighthouse

This light was built in 1906 and replaced the original light from 1872. It is 42 feet high and has a Fifth Order Fresnel lens. The light is located on a pier where the Milwaukee River enters the harbor.

North Point Lighthouse

The North Point light was built in 1888. It was built to replace the original 1855 light that was located 100 feet east of this location and was being threatened by erosion. The original tower was 39 feet high. In 1908 it was determined that the nearby trees were beginning to block the light. So instead of cutting the trees, they built a 35 foot structure next to the light and then placed the existing tower on top of the structure raising the light to it’s present height of 74 feet. The North Point light has a Forth Order Fresnel lens that produces a light that can be seen 21 miles away.

For more information on the North Point Lighthouse you can visit their web site at www.NorthPointLighthouse.org

You can read more about this lighthouse at this link,

Grosse Point Lighthouse

The history section tells of the ship wreck that killed 300-400 people and finally convinced the government that a lighthouse was needed in that area.