Beach - U.S. Pictures: Bill Swartwout Photography

The darkest hour may be just before dawn but…

The colors of dawn, pre-sunrise, can be simply beautiful. Here is a dawn photograph of an iconic lone tree silhouetted against the brightening and colorful sky on Driftwood Beach in Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Driftwood Beach is on the northern end of Jekyll Island, one of Georgia’s Golden Isles, and is a picturesque place featuring numerous driftwood trees and parts of trees. This “scene from another world” was created by years of erosion that caused trees of a marine forest to topple into the salt water of the Atlantic ocean and die. While it is a form of marine debris, or tidewrack, is can also be quite beautiful and even mysterious. The salinity of the ocean water tends to preserve the trees for many decades – if not longer.

Whenever we travel south – from Delaware to South Carolina, Georgia or Florida, we like to take a side trip to Jekyll Island. Any trip to Jekyll means a walk on the beach because it is a beautiful and wondrous place to be, morning, noon or night. Yes, we have done all three – from sunrise over the Atlantic to moonrise over the beach – and all times in between.

Link for prints: Bill’s Fine Art America Gallery

Link for prints – just at sunrise: Bill’s Pictorem Gallery (w/free shipping in the U.S.)

These historic “lighthouses” are on Lake Michigan

Two historic beacons on a breakwater. At the entrance of the St. Joseph River on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan are two lights, the St. Joseph North Pierhead Lighthouse and the St. Joseph North Pier Inner Lighthouse.

These two aids to navigation date back to the early 1900’s to help guide ships safely into the harbor – shared by St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, MI.

The image was presented in an almost “painterly” fashion by Mother Nature. Only a small amount of editing was done in post-processing – just cropping and a bit of contrast adjustment. It is also available in a black and white version that gives this nautical scene a different feel that might work well as wall art in an office.