Available July 15 from Northwestern University Press, The Third Coast: America’s Great Lakes Shoreline is a photographic journey into the heart and soul of the Great Lakes region. Here, Ann Arbor City Lifestyle sits down with award-winning photographer David Zurick to discuss his upcoming book exploring the distinct personalities, majesty, and mystery of these natural wonders.
As Midwesterners, the name The Third Coast feels empowering—something uniquely owned by the Great Lakes region. In your own words, tell us the story behind the name of the book.
Well, as I began my journey around the Great Lakes, I started to see the names of things like “The Third Coast” in shops and cafés. And it just stuck in my mind as a way to refer to this shoreline—which, added all up, is longer than the Atlantic and Pacific coasts combined—and what it represents for the United States and for the people that live on those lakes: a kind of defining geography. You know, a lot of folks don’t go out in the middle of these lakes. We experience these lakes from the shoreline, right? So that’s how we tend to see them.
You take your readers on a journey to the Great Lakes through the seasons and try to evoke the personality of each lake and the people living there. What were your favorite spots at each lake?
One of the things I got out of this project was an understanding of how different these lakes actually are from each other—which I didn’t really realize, despite being born and raised on Lake Huron. I actually began this project on Lake Huron in the fall, and it was really home ground for me... I mean, I spent my childhood up until my early 20s cruising that Thumb coastline.
I guess the turning of the seasons in autumn, and the reflectiveness that often comes with that season—that became the area I zeroed in on for Lake Huron. Seeing places that I had visited many, many times as a kid with my family, and now exploring them photographically as an adult, to see what kind of imagery I could make there. So in the book, Lake Huron represents fall.
Then we moved into the winter season, and I knew it had to be Lake Superior—it has such an energy, such a presence. My favorite spot was spending time along the shoreline near Whitefish Point. The wind, the ice formations, the water smashing into the rocks—I mean, the intensity of it all. It’s known colloquially as the "Shipwreck Coast." This is where a lot of lake freighters have shipwrecked, so that was an interesting area for me.
For spring, I went to Lake Michigan—which is a thing. Lake Michigan has a lot of beauty, but photographically, the most interesting part was probably the most abused part of Lake Michigan—down by Hammond, Ind., you know, East Chicago, this heart of hardcore industrial wasteland that has taken that lakeshore and turned it into something that isn't so pleasant.
The focus of my photography has always been—I don't really take a lot of pretty pictures. What I really take are photographs of the cultural landscape—the imprint of human society living in that place. When I go in with a camera, I'm looking at the landscape as a mirror, and I'm kind of a reflective surface—reflecting the lives of the people who live there.
And then Lake Erie and Ontario—I chose to do them in the summer. What really grabbed me there was just, you know, having fun in the summer—out on the beach, barbecuing, cruising the lake. There were several spots around there that caught my eye that way. Not just the beach places, but people enjoying the fleeting summer warmth of the lake.
Did anything surprise you on this photographic journey of the Great Lakes?
Well, most of my work has been internationally focused—in Polynesia, the Himalayas, India. So the most surprising thing is that I had just as big an adventure on this project as I have on any of my photography projects anywhere in the world. I didn’t realize how interesting of an adventure the Great Lakes would be for me, even though I grew up there.
"One of the things I got out of this project was an understanding of how different these lakes actually are from each other."
— David Zurick
"What I really take are photographs of the cultural landscape—the imprint of human society living in that place. When I go in with a camera, I'm looking at the landscape as a mirror, and I'm kind of a reflective surface—reflecting the lives, the people who live there."
— David Zurick