There is a brief stretch of time after the sun disappears when the Boundary Waters seems to hold onto the day. On Gaskin Lake, the wind had fallen away and the surface had become almost perfectly still. Along the horizon, the last light remained—a thin band of orange separating the darkening forest from the approaching night. The rocks were motionless. The lake was nearly motionless. But over the course of a long exposure, the water became something else entirely. Small ripples and movements that would normally catch the eye disappeared into the exposure, leaving behind a smooth, ghostlike surface. The water seemed less like water and more like glass, with the rocks emerging from it as though suspended between the lake and the sky.

This is one of my favorite times to photograph the Boundary Waters. The dramatic light of sunset has already passed, the colors have begun to fade, and the landscape settles into a quieter version of itself. For a few minutes, there is no real distinction between the end of one day and the beginning of another.