Tag: Nature Photography

Ludington State Park

Last September I rolled into Ludington State Park for a one-night stay on my way back from filming in Traverse City. I had never visited this park before, so I spent the evening walking the dunes and looking for images. To my surprise, while the campground was almost full, no one else was out wandering the dunes – much to my pleasure. Having the place to yourself gives you time to wander and take in the place and space you are in. It was interesting to find areas without any footprints in many places. It was a peaceful evening filled with images everywhere.

In the morning, while folks were still not out on the dunes yet, I flew a drone over the area before heading back home. Enjoy.

Cheers,
Richard


International Color Awards

Once again this year I have been honored by having several images selected as a nominee in the International Color Awards. The International Color Awards is the leading global award honoring excellence in color photography. Now in its 11th year, this celebrated event shines a spotlight on the best professional and amateur photographers in a prestigious annual contest. It is always humbling when you win awards on the global stage. This draws from close to 50,000 submissions from around the world.

It is an honor to be a nominee for the third year, once in the second annual, three in the 10th Annual and now three more in this the 11th Annual Color Awards.

Annual: 11th Annual International Color Awards
Photographer: Richard Mack – USA
Expertise: Professional
Position: Nominee
Category: Architecture
Title: Portugal Hallway

Outdoor hallway in Faro Portugal.

Niagara Falls in Winter

Annual: 11th Annual International Color Awards
Photographer: Richard Mack – USA
Expertise: Professional
Position: Nominee
Category: Nature
Title: Niagara Falls Moment

A moment in time caught at Niagara Falls in winter.

Annual: 11th Annual International Color Awards
Photographer: Richard Mack – USA
Expertise: Professional
Position: Nominee
Category: Wildlife
Title: The Dance

An evening dance by two Great Egrets landing on the island trees shared by dozens of Great Egrets and others.


Lake Superior Night Sky

This past March I spent a week travelling around Lake Superior. It happened to be the exact same week I had been up there in 2013, in fact this shot of the night sky was done on the same night 3 years after I had done a similar shot. This time though I was doing a series of time-lapse images of the night sky as part of my project for The Sweetwater Seas – A Documentary About North America’s Great Lakes. In 2013 there was snow and ice with temperatures below 0°F and the lake frozen over with ice. This year it was between 20-35°F and the ice was almost none existent. However, knowing the ice wouldn’t be there, I still wanted to travel around the lake and was hoping to get a few nice time-lapse of the night sky along with time-lapse of clouds and any other subject which drew me in. On a trip like this you hope to come back with at least one good set of images. I was lucky enough to exceed my expectations even though some things didn’t go the way I had hoped. I had only one clear night. I spent hours on the beach at Split Rock State Park in Minnesota shooting the night sky with wolves howling in the distance. It was a beautiful night and morning. For those who don’t know much about time-lapse, first you need to know your frame rate, how long you want the clip to be and then do the computations to figure out how many shots you need over what time period. In the case of these I did a 15 second exposure with 3 seconds in between. So to get 13 seconds of video it took almost 2 hours of shooting. Not a bad way to spend your night…


Honorable Mention in 2015 Black & White Spider Awards!

The Power of Water & Ice, Niagara Falls

The Power of Water & Ice, Niagara Falls

I am honored to share the news that an image I did as part of The Sweetwater Seas Documentary has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2015 B&W Spider Awards in the Nature Photography – Professional’s Category! Here is the press release from the B&W Spider Awards:

10TH ANNUAL BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS HONORS PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD MACK FROM USA

LOS ANGELES 11/21/2105 – Professional photographer Richard Mack of Evanston, Illinois was presented with the 10th Annual Black and White Spider Awards Honorable Mention in the category of Nature Photography at a prestigious Nomination & Winners PhotoShow webcast Saturday, November 21, 2015.

The live online gala was attended by over 10,000 photography fans around the globe who logged on to watch the climax of the industry’s most important event for black and white photography.

10th Annual Jury members included captains of the industry from Bonhams, Random House, Aeroplastics Contemporary, Stockholm City Museum, Annenberg Foundation, Leo Burnett, FTM Art Advisory and Fratelli Alinari who honored Spider Fellows with 505 coveted title awards in 31 categories.

“It is an incredible achievement to be selected among the best from the 7,686 entries we received this year,” said Basil O’Brien, the awards Creative Director. “Richard Mack’s “The Power of Water and Ice, Niagara Falls” is an exceptional image entered in the Nature category, represents black and white photography at its finest, and we’re pleased to present Mack with the title of Honorable Mention – Professional in Nature Category.” Jury member Diane Ruggie from Velocebella agency added, “The gallery of winners and runners up has true stopping power.”

BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS is the leading international award honoring excellence in black and white photography. This celebrated event shines a spotlight on the best professional and amateur photographers worldwide and honors the finest images with the highest achievements in black and white photography. www.thespiderawards.com

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Anytime you are honored with an award it is both humbling and exciting to know folks like your work. We did put a small video together from this shoot for The Sweetwater Seas documentary. You can view it on vimeo

Niagara Falls Winter from Richard Mack Photography, Ltd on Vimeo.

You can also see more about the documentary on our website The Sweetwater Seas.

Cheers!

Richard Mack