Life is good.
You can’t help but get that feeling during beach season on the Great Lakes.
It’s lying out in the sun in pursuit of a tan. Or sitting in the shade to avoid the rays.
It’s diving into the waves. Or running away from the tide.
It’s noticing the music and the scent of barbecue cutting through the air.
That is how photographer David Zurick describes summers on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, which he documents in his new book, “The Third Coast: America’s Great Lakes Shoreline.”
But Zurick is just as fond of those quieter moments on the beach, like just before sunrise on Lake Michigan in St. Clair County. There, he photographed two people capturing the pink and blue hues of the horizon on their phones.
“You can almost see the earth turning on its axis,” said Zurick, 69, who lives in the hills outside of Berea, Ky.
That is just one of many unplanned moments recorded in the book, which he said reflects his personal view of the Great Lakes.
“The beauty of any art is it allows you to see the world in a certain way and, frankly, to see yourself in a different way while you’re engaged in it,” he said.
Released July 15 by Northwestern University Press, “The Third Coast” celebrates the Great Lakes’ 4,500-mile shoreline, which covers more distance than the country’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts combined. Organized by season and lake, the collection highlights cherry blossoms along Lake Michigan in spring, golden foliage bordering Lake Huron in autumn, ice climbers and fishermen braving Lake Superior in winter, and even more merrymaking in the presence of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
The book inspires readers to consider not just the beauty and diversity of the Great Lakes, but the industries it feeds, the challenges it faces and the people it influences.
Known for his international work photographing sites such as the Himalayas and Polynesia, Zurick had to put his travels on hold during the pandemic. Instead, he decided to embark on a stateside project with personal ties. Having grown up in a town on Lake Huron, exploring the Great Lakes with his Sony RX1R digital still camera proved to be a meaningful experience.
“The biggest surprise that I had is the realization that I had just as big of an adventure and came away as creatively satisfied as I have on any of my projects anywhere in the world,” he said.
While “#SummerTimeChi” is top of mind this time of year, readers won’t see familiar images of North Avenue Beach or Oak Street Beach in the book. Instead, they may be inspired to take a road trip north to see the sand dunes in Michigan.
Zurick showcases the scale of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, as well as the fun of riding a dune buggy at Silver Lake Park. He also photographed the downward slope of a dune in Oceana County. The perception is that trees are growing out of the sand, but the reality is that the dune is migrating into a forest.
The book’s cold-weather images of Lake Superior are just as intriguing. The journey to capture the cover shot began with a walk on the ice at the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. After a couple miles, Zurick spotted a rock formation with a narrow base and wide top covered with snow and vegetation.
“It looks like it’s going to topple over at any second,” he said.
Zurick also met people who seemed unfazed by the frigid temperature. In Marquette, Mich., he took a portrait of a woman and her dog, Shadow, both bundled up in the below-zero weather.
“It was amazing to see this woman out there,” he said. “I don’t know how much her dog was enjoying it, but she was definitely enjoying being out there.”
Photos of ice-bearded surfers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan didn’t make it into print, but Zurick found the men fascinating.
“These are wild guys,” he said. “They get in wetsuits and they go out and ride these waves. And when they’re done, they’re just frozen.”
Zurick illustrates the lakes’ impact on the economy through simple yet interesting photos of mill logs in Alger County, Mich., a sugar beet harvest in Sebewaing, Mich., and a nuclear power plant in Port Clinton, Ohio.
And he doesn’t shy away from showing the effects of pollution. The book features images of leftover materials from an iron ore mine in Marquette County, Mich.; a layer of smog in Lake County, Ind.; and brown runoff in Ottawa County, Ohio.
Documenting those environments prompted Zurick to reflect on the downside of human interaction with the lakes. But he said he was heartened by their resiliency, especially when regulations are put into place.
“That is a great lesson for us to know about the planet at large,” he said. “The lakes gave me an opportunity to explore that as well.”