The Circle in Pictures: Two Photographers Tell Us About Their Tour of Lake Superior

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Of course two friends who share a passion for Lake Superior and for a particular photography technique would end up having the same first names. That probably made it a lot easier to remember John Heino and John Alexander Kay on their Lake Superior Circle Tour in the early fall last year.

Both photographers prefer a style of photo-taking impossible before the advent of digital cameras. High Dynamic Range, or HDR photography, involves shooting multiple images from the same vantage and blending them seamlessly to achieve greater depth and detail. John K., for example, melds seven images – three underexposed, three overexposed and one regular exposure – for many of his images. John H. adopted the technique from his friend.

You can see their work in the June/July issue. Below, they tell us about their Circle Tour experience and their photographic journeys.

Could you give me a wee “biography” of yourself – what’s your day job, how did photography grab you?

John Alexander Kay: I have always had a longing for and a love for all things Nature. From the time I can remember, birds, bugs, wildlife and natural beauty have caught my eye. I dabbled in photography for many years before taking it on sort of full time now. By that, I mean that since I’m recently retired from 33 years of being an elementary school teacher and before that two years of military service in the U.S. Army and then six years of college, I now devote myself to doing what I absolutely love: Making art with my camera and sharing my vision with the world.

John Heino: I’m a lifelong resident of Duluth area and began my photographic adventures working in film as an art student at UMD in the 1980s. I see myself as “a wide-eyed explorer” trying to see the world again the way I saw it as a child. My photographs are displayed at the Duluth Holiday Inn, Beacon Bank, Cloquet Memorial Hospital, the University of Minnesota Center for Ambulatory Care and have been exhibited at the Duluth City Hall.

I’m retired from my job as CEO at Como Oil & Propane.

How did you decide on your Lake Superior Circle Tour photographic road trip? Had you done such a thing before?

JAK: John Heino and I had done many shorter photography day trips together for a few years after meeting in 2012 while engaged in Twin Cities Public Television’s “Capture Minnesota” project (and still are). When I retired from teaching in 2014, I brought up the idea of a longer trip in the fall and since John Heino had already retired a couple of years earlier, he jumped at the chance. I suggested a long trip to the South Dakota Badlands and Yellowstone National Park at the end of September and early October of 2014. It was a magical trip, and we knew then that we had both found someone with a like mindset not only for company but where to go and what to photograph. It isn’t everyone you can take a 10-day trip with and make every day great, but John and I certainly did. So, knowing that, we planned 2015’s trip to Glacier National Park in the fall, but the fires out West convinced us not to go there almost at the last moment. John suggested the 10-day Circle Tour of Lake Superior. He planned it and even bought me Lake Superior Magazine’s Lake Superior Travel Guide, which was a great resource. We’re so glad we did the Circle Tour!

JH: Before I retired from Como, I used to extend business travel a day or two on either side of meetings to explore different states and photograph whatever caught my eye – often landscapes. Once I retired, I found great joy in just taking off with the gear, not knowing what’s over the hill or around the bend. I’ve had the wanderlust since I was a child. I met John Kay through “Capture Minnesota.” We respected each other’s work, kind of hit it off and starting meeting up for day shoots up here on the North Shore or in his neck of the woods. Our first extensive photo expedition was to the Badlands and Yellowstone in the fall of 2014. It was a wonderful trip, from the images we captured to the camaraderie. We had decided to do Glacier National Park in the autumn of 2015, but changed our plans because much of the West was on fire or shrouded in smoke. For a last-minute Plan B, the Great Lake Superior Circle Tour did not disappoint.

How was doing the trip as photographers different than it might be just for your average joes and jills with only sightseeing in mind?

JAK: We as photographers had one major thing on our mind each and every day and that was to try to get to and photograph the most scenic locations we could in the time we had. John had the itinerary, and I added my ideas and worked the road maps and in every instance the trip went amazingly smooth, considering we hadn’t done it before. The big difference between what we were doing and what the average tourist would probably do is we made sure we went to not only the accessible places but the harder to reach ones as well. We drove very bumpy gravel/sand roads for miles, hiked deep into places that held promises of gorgeous waterfalls, sand dunes or birds, got tired and did it again. We would get up pre-dawn to shoot sunrise and would keep going until the last sunset was photographed. Then we just hoped we could find a place to eat that was still open!

JH: For me, the biggest difference is probably the relentless schedule we subject ourselves to as photographers. We do not sleep in. We are up every morning to be in position to shoot a half-hour before sunrise and often shoot until after sunset. If there is an aurora possibility, we might shoot into the wee hours. I love it because of my passion for pursuing great images, but it’s far from the leisure pace one might enjoy as a tourist.

Photographically, was there any impression or discovery that you took away from your trip?

JAK: I was just amazed at how large Lake Superior really is and how beautiful and different each mile was. It also struck me how important the Big Lake was and is to people for fishing, boating, commerce, birding, wonderment and tourism. The sad part was, it doesn’t seem like tourism is all that thriving in certain areas like the eastern side of the Lake in Ontario. We saw many, many abandoned hotels and other businesses with closed doors over there.

JH: My biggest takeaway was a new appreciation for the diverse beauty of Lake Superior and its shores. Growing up in the Duluth area and shooting the North Shore for decades, I thought I knew Lake Superior. And, frankly, I couldn’t imagine that anything else around the Lake could measure up to the wonders we have from Brighton Beach up the shore with state parks, waterfalls, Artists’ Point in Grand Marais, Hollow Rock and all the way to the Canadian border. During our adventure, I photographed the Pictured Rocks near Munising, Michigan, for the first time and I was in awe. This is just one example. It’s certainly a highly subjective matter to pick favorites between say Pictured Rocks and Artists’ Point. My own opinion is they’re both world class and a joy to photograph. The point is that there are world-class features all around the Big Lake. And they’re all quite different.

Touristically, the same question: Any surprise great finds or memorable encounters?

JAK: One thing we had never done on any of our trips together was to take a guided tour, but we decided to take a tour boat out of Munising, Michigan, to see the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore with a lot of other tourists. We were pleasantly surprised at how much we liked it, and it was a favorite memory of the trip because of the constantly changing beauty of the area we never would have experienced otherwise. We also stayed at mom-and-pop motels along the way to save money and experience the locals. We stayed in interesting places and met interesting people. Dining ranged from great to pretty darn bad, but we just smiled at everything because it was so fun! One of these motels in Ontario put us on a gravel road to a “Pebble Beach,” which no one was on but us. It was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, and it must have been over a mile long. Rocks the size of small eggs or golf balls in every color. The waves would come up, grab some of these rocks and then they would clatter down into the Lake, making this beautiful singing noise. We would have never found it if it weren’t for the motel owner who was so nice. Wonderful serenity.

JH: Personally, I loved the lighthouses. There’s a certain charm to all lighthouses and the ones around Lake Superior are diverse in design and interesting in their own right. Most are also situated where they can be incorporated into sunrise and/or sunset shots.

At the risk of sounding food-centered, two wonderful breakfast-related delights come to mind: the thick-sliced, apple wood-smoked bacon at the West Bay Diner in Grand Marais, Michigan, and the Finnish pancakes at the Hoito Restaurant in Thunder Bay. These mouthwatering experiences are the reason we avoid chain restaurants and instead sample the fare from locally owned eateries whenever possible.

If you had one piece of advice for those considering their own Circle Tour – with or without camera – what would that advice be?

JAK: My advice would be to certainly pre-plan your trip so as to maximize your experience. Knowing where you want to go and what you want to see and where you will stay each night will make the trip more fun. However, plan on and take the unexpected side tours based on local information that you get. Those types of unplanned experiences many times make a trip like this even more magical. Stay at small-town motels and eat at small-town restaurants as you just can’t beat the local flavor of both. Doing this really gives you an insight into rural and small-town America.

Finally, let’s talk about technique. Do you mostly shoot HDR, and could you explain what that is?

JAK: Yes, I shoot High Dynamic Range for most of my landscapes. HDR has gotten a dirty name in some circles because some photographers grunge their photos up, make them look surreal, soup it up with garish colors and leave halos around buildings or trees. I don’t do that. I take seven photos in a row using RAW at +1 EV (exposure value) apart. This overexposes three and under exposes three leaving one at a “normal” shot. These are all blended into Photomatix Pro and then tweaked in Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ll sometimes work on one photo for an hour or so to get it to look like I want but keeping it as natural as possible. However, I am not out to just take a picture. My goal is to make art and to separate my photos from all the other excellent landscape photographers out there who are shooting the same scene I am.

I spoke with an official for a business who is looking for high-quality photos to display and he said most of the photographers that shoot landscape and submit them to him are beautiful photos but in the end they “all look the same.” This is my way of trying to stick out from the crowd in a good and unique way. When someone looks at one of my photos, I want them to say “Wow! I want that on my wall!”

Some say HDR is not natural, but yet those people might stack 50 or more photos to make one final composition or use a neutral-density filter set for five minutes and then the water and clouds smooth out and the light evens out. Is that any different than HDR?

I love the HDR technique because I have seven photos that are bracketed. If seven doesn’t do the trick, I might choose five or three of them to make my composition work. I may even choose only one that is under or overexposed if the HDR process doesn’t lend itself to what my vision is. This gives me a lot of flexibility in what I want to show. I love how the HDR process evens out the final photo by not having overly dark or overly light areas in the final product. I believe this is how we actually see the scene as differences in light or dark in a scene can and will fool the camera’s sensor.

Not everybody processes their HDR the same. Certainly John Heino has a different style than I do in what his final product looks like. So it boils down to what the artist wants to portray in his or her final product and what makes a person happy. This is what I choose to do and it’s worked very well for me not only in getting published but in selling my work.

JH: Most of my landscapes are HDR. A couple years ago, when I was comparing my conventionally processed images with John Kay and other photo buddies who had begun HDR, I was stunned at the difference between their images and mine shot at the same time and place. Specifically, their images had superior tonal range, texture and detail. So, I took the plunge. If an image screams “H-D-R!!!,” though, I think it’s overdone. So, I put a great deal of time and effort into trying enhance tonal range and detail without over processing. But the HDR sweet spot is highly subjective, and I know I cannot please everyone. I believe I’m closer to the sweet spot now than when I first started HDR, but judging from some of the feedback I get, I’m still overdoing it for some people’s taste. As an artist, I’m always re-evaluating under what circumstances HDR is the best technique for my creative objectives. I generally don’t use it for wildlife or people, but I almost always prefer HDR for landscape. It simply reveals more of the detail my digital camera captures.