By definition, new performance boat models are newsworthy. That’s why we assigned photographer Pete Boden to shoot Mystic Powerboats’ new C4400 catamaran and M4200 luxury center console on Lake Michigan the morning before the 2015 Boyne Thunder Poker Run for the cover of our May/June digital magazine.

Our No. 3 pick from our 2015 Images of the Week countdown, “Mystic Blues” is a technically perfect photo from a true craftsman. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix (click image to enlarge).

But as excellent as those photos were—“Mystic Blues”—our No. 3 Image of the Week for our 2015 countdown, didn’t come from that shoot. Boden returned to Lake Michigan, this time off Chicago, about a month later to shoot another Mystic C4400 for Scott Sjogren of Shogren Performance Marine, Mystic’s global dealer based in nearby McHenry, Ill.

The most obvious element of this image is a high-performance catamaran in perfect trim on sheet-glass water, not something you find every day on Lake Michigan. Beyond that—and what drew us to it—is that the entire photo, from the dark water to the light sky offset by white-and-pink-hued clouds, is a study in blue. And thanks to the angle from which Boden captured it, the cat pops from the image. It’s a technically perfect photo from a true craftsman.

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