Mila Avani

Some photographic concepts are planned out well in advance, and some are spur of the moment. This was one of those spontaneous, “in the moment” ideas. Mila and I were doing portraits in the area around Marquette Michigan. It was after dark by the time we arrived at this location and the ore dock was lit up in the background. It just seemed like a great idea to rim light Mila with the lights in the background.

My camera was on a tripod. To get enough light I set the ISO to 800 and used a shutter speed of 13 seconds. She had to hold her breath to avoid any slight blurring of the image. The windchill was 42 degrees. We created this image 15 years ago this evening. It is one of my favorites.

About 10 million tons of iron ore are shipped from this dock every year. If you look closely you can see a long ship that was docked when I took this photo. 

Exposure Data: Canon 5D camera. Canon EF 24-105mm lens at 24mm. f/8, 13 seconds, ISO 800.