A metallic black Lake Michigan photo where everything exists in a narrow range of color. The sky, clouds and water all have this rich dark palette that allows for there to be an incredible subtlety and detail in their surfaces. The clouds obscure almost all of the sunlight on this day, creating diffuse low light. This in turn, helps to give the clouds and water a deep and almost sedate quality to them. However, there is a strength in the calm that precedes the storm. But no matter what, when we think of Lake Michigan, this is not the first thing that comes to mind.
A Morning on a Black Lake Michigan
I don’t often get mornings like this on the lake when I go to shoot for the Lake Series. Where it’s so dark and almost becomes a black lake. In all of the Lake Michigan photos that I’ve taken, only a few possess this quality. I love the way the black lake water appears to almost be oil. The colors are so deep and rich in tone. The water smooth and liquid in the way that it’s rolling gently under slight winds.
However, when we get big storms like this over the lake, the waters will be moving much more quickly. But here it undulates softly under these dark gray storm clouds. The surface of the lake remained calm enough to beautifully reflect the sky above in its waters. There was an eerie stillness in the air, given how dramatic the morning was, as if we were waiting for a performance to begin. The rains are starting to fall out on the horizon over the black lake waters, far from shore and where I’m standing to take this photograph for the Lake Series.
For more black lake photos along with all the rest of the photographs from the last five years of the Lake Series here. Or, follow along as I explore this and other projects on my instagram account.