March was a really nice month for my photography in 2023 and produce a few of my best selling prints of the year. I’ve decide to split this month in two with the first part being Hecla Island.
On the second week of the month, my wife and I (along with our dog) went for much needed time away from home and we rented a cabin at Gull Harbor on Hecla Island Provincial park. While I had visited Hecla a few times in the summer, it was our first time going in winter and was quite a different experience and adventure.
On the morning after the first night, I woke up early so I could photograph the sunrise on the lake.
In the first shot, you can see some really nice sunrays as the sun pops above the horizon with the lighthouse on the right.
In the next shot I position myself in between some SnowBear (an oversized enclosed ski-doo used for ice fishing) track with the tracks leading straight toward the sun, a pretty special shot which I sold a few print copies.
In that next one, I continued my walk over the snow covering lake Winnipeg and took this closer shot of the lighthouse as the sun continues it’s slow rise over the horizon.
The next morning I woke up again before the sun rose and went scouting a bit more in another direction along the shore. I took those serene shots of the pink and purple sky before the sun showed up on the horizon.
As I walked passed the pointe just after the sun started to rise, I noticed that ice ridge with jagged pieces of ice and thought it was quite a nice sight for an otherwise barren foreground.
I switch lens on my camera and positioned myself between some of those protruding shards of ice, with the sun rising in the middle of it. I really love that shot and it’s been one of my bestseller.
Later, my wife and I decided to take a walk across the lake with our goal being to reach Black Island a few kilometers away, in the first part of our walk I took that shot of the historic lighthouse across a blue sky with the jagged foreground of an ice-ridge.
Our dog Max had quite a bit of fun along the way as you can see. And as we approached Black Island (on the horizon in the next picture) we noticed something in the snow…
…some large grey wolf prints…
On the left you can see my dogs print compared to the middle much larger wolf print.
That got my wife a bit nervous (ok maybe me too) and she chose to stay a bit further (a wiser choice perhaps?) as I finished with the goal of reaching the island which was pretty close by that time, I stuck to the shore though and chose not to enter the forest. I noticed several more wolf tracks, probably patrolling along the shore at night but no encounter with a wolf and max didn’t seem nervous either. We then made our return across the ice and came back uneventfully to the cabin.
The sky got pretty overcast later on the day so I chose to take a couple of minimalist black and white shots
later I took that shot of the forest edge as the sun was setting through the overcast sky.
At night, the sky was clear again and the sky was filled with so many stars, night photography was something I had very little experience with then but I decided it was the perfect occasion to gain some. I took that stary sky above the forest ridge. which is a pretty cool panorama and another one of the road out of the harbor.
Stay tuned for part 2 as I took some really amazing sundogs, another of my bestselling prints this year.
Marc Gilbert Photography 
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