Early evening calm

Lake Superior is what I call a mean lake.  It always seems to have large waves coming in.  The wind is always blowing into shore carrying with it cold northern air.  The lake's vast size makes it seem like a bully. On my first night in the area, there was a short period just after dark that I went down along a part of the lake I had been to earlier to watch guys fishing from a pier.  You could tell the lake had calmed down considerably from when I had been there earlier.  I couldn't really see what type of wave action was going on so I grabbed a large spotlight from my car and shined it out over an area where a small stream/river flowed into the lake.  I could see that it was actually very calm at this time. So, I setup my camera on a tripod, kept the shutter open longer due to the darkness to allow more time for the picture to develop and at the same time the camera was taking the shot, I flashed my spotlight onto the scene to add more light and give a better chance to get a decent shot. It came out better than I could have ever imagined.