Freshwater Fury

With warm, breezy sunshine a distance memory, autumn’s dark, cold and windy days transform the Great Lakes into wild and churning frenzies. Mariners refer to these winds as the Witch of November, testament to the gales’ often devastating wickedness. On Lake Erie—the shallowest of the five Great Lakes with an average depth of just 62 feet—treacherously steep waves form, responsible for some 2,000 shipwrecks.

Last fall, I took a break from professional sports photography to capture the Witch as she raged across Erie’s north shore. The small, lakeside community of Port Stanley is notorious for its powerful rip currents, and the wave pattern becomes extremely erratic here. With air temperatures dropping below freezing at night and daytime highs hovering just above, the town’s sandy shore was vacant as I suited up each day to enter the fray.

Capturing the true size of monster waves 500 feet offshore is about finding the right perspective. Being at water level brings the horizon lower in the frame, giving a more accurate idea of the size and scale of these 25-foot freshwater freaks. Depending on wind speed and direction, I decided if conditions were safe for me to wade into the near-freezing water, or if I should shoot from shore.

Armed with wetsuit, neoprene gloves, booties and hood, I used an Aquatech waterproof housing to shield my Canon EOS-1Dx and telephoto lenses—a 70- 200mm and a 400mm—from the elements. Being tossed around as if in a washing machine, and sandblasted by wind gusting to 60 miles per hour, made this shoot both physically and mentally demanding.