North Shore Minnesota Landscape Photography | Lake Superior on 35mm Film & Digital
North Shore
on film
& digital
Gooseberry Falls · Split Rock · Tettegouche · Hollow Rock
Lake Superior's Minnesota coastline doesn't photograph easily. The weather moves fast, the light shifts from flat grey to blinding gold in minutes, and the volcanic basalt coastline resists tidy compositions. These two galleries document the place honestly, on 35mm film and digital, across winter, autumn, and the seasons between.
North Shore, on 35mm
Shot on Kodak Portra 400 and Ektar 100 across winter and autumn. Film slows you down in exactly the right way for this landscape. You wait, you commit, you bracket. The grain does the rest.
North Shore, on digital
High resolution digital capture across multiple trips and seasons. Where film renders mood, digital catches the detail the eye missed in the field.
Photography notes. Lake Superior.
These photographs were made across several trips to the Minnesota North Shore. The film work was shot on a Nikon F3 using Kodak Portra 400, developed and scanned by a local lab. The grain of 35mm in flat winter light produces a tonal quality that digital processing rarely matches.
Tettegouche State Park
One of the most striking stretches of Minnesota's North Shore, where the land rises sharply and Lake Superior feels endless. Shovel Point was the highlight: a narrow outcrop pushing into the lake, with views that feel both exposed and quiet at the same time. Out beyond the cliffs stood the sea stack, once a defining feature of Tettegouche, until Superior's waves eventually took it back.
Split Rock Lighthouse
The lighthouse sits on a 130-foot cliff above the lake. The best photography happens in the hour before sunrise when fog is still on the water. Getting there at 4:30am in November is not comfortable, but it is worth it.
More landscape work
The full landscape portfolio includes work across Minnesota and beyond. Travel photography from Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa is in the Film & Motion section.
