365 A Year in the Photographic Lives of Todd and Brad Reed

It looks like a field of dreams as I look at a meadow of mustard grass through my large telephoto lens. The view is equivalent to looking through 10-power binoculars. I focus farther away and closer until the picture feels just right. F4.0 at 1/640, ISO 100, 300 mm lens at 300 mm

My neighbor down the street, TJ Christiansen, has built a 16-foot giraffe out of four sheets of steel. It is shocking how realistic the magnificent piece of artwork is. He has nicknamed the giraffe Geoffrey. F16.0 at 1/60, ISO 500, 18-50 mm lens at 40 mm

When I look upon the heron rookery that Don and Mary Klemm told me I could find along US 10 west of Clare, all I can think is how eerily beautiful the scene looks. This great blue heron stood out among the many herons we watched. F4.0 at 1/1250, ISO 400, 300 mm lens at 300 mm

The underside of an old fishing vessel is a great place to explore with a camera. The colors and patterns can be mesmerizing. F22.0 at 1/10, ISO 500, 18-50 mm lens at 27 mm

Snakes startle me sometimes but I appreciate their beauty. My brother Budde discovered this garter snake while we were mushroom hunting near our Pere Marquette River cabin with my nephew Ryan and his girlfriend Erica. F3.2 at 1/500, ISO 200, 105 mm lens at 105 mm

Eric Riggs bought this brown duck when it was only a few weeks old and released it into the wetlands near his home. The duck is technically a wild critter now, but he is very friendly and curious. Julia, Ethan, and I got a kick out of his honking abilities as well. F5.6 at 1/400, ISO 1000, 70-200 mm lens at 200 mm

This tom turkey displays its full regalia while strutting amongst a flock of turkeys in the morning light. How can a bird that often looks ugly look so magnificent looking when it wants to? I was glad to have shot him (with my camera) during turkey hunting season. F5.0 at 1/125, ISO 250, 80-200 mm lens at 165 mm

This is my first good photo of a Caspian tern. I have not seen many of these birds around West Michigan until recent years. They are beautiful, agile and incredibly nimble in the air. Just after I made this photo, the tern dove head first into the water and came out with a nice treat for dinner in its beak. F5.0 at 1/2000, ISO 640, 70-200 mm lens at 200 mm

For a very short time, the fruit country south of Ludington blossoms into a fairyland. This evening view is from Hawley Road looking north. F5.0 at 1/200, ISO 200, 80-200 mm lens at 200 mm

This is another photo of TJ Christiansen's 16-foot giraffe that he cut and welded from the ground up. I got underneath Geoffrey and shot straight up in the air to make some abstract black and white art. F2.8 at 1/125, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 18 mm

This fisherman may or may not be catching fish but he definitely has a front row seat for one of the biggest and best sunsets so far this spring. I would like to trade places for a while. F5.0 at 1/640, ISO 100, 500 mm lens at 500 mm

Don Allen of Ludington has been part of the local garden club for many years. His backyard is unbelievably gorgeous from early spring until late fall. He invited me over to photograph tonight and I was immediately drawn to this clump of primrose. F22.0 at 0.4, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 38 mm

I photographed this old house on Sugar Grove Road this winter but felt compelled to make a new image upon spotting springtime flowers in the front yard. The flowers put a little life in the abandoned building and make me wonder about the people who planted them and lived there many years ago. F5.6 at 1/125, ISO 100, 12-24 mm lens at 17 mm

One-year-old Caly Eisenlohr stands out beautifully in a sea of dandelions. I was making an image of an orchard and the dandelions in full bloom along Pere Marquette Highway when Caly's parents, Jerrod and Tara, decided this was the perfect setting for them to take pictures of Caly and her three-year-old brother Owen. F4 at 1/320, ISO 400, 500mm lens at 500mm

For this shot, I put my camera on a tripod, used my 70-200 mm zoom lens, focused on the yellow bush in front of me, set my aperture to F22, my shutter speed to three seconds, and my ISO to 100. Once the camera started to expose, I carefully zoomed my lens from 70 mm to 200 mm creating beautiful art inside my camera. F22.0 at 3.0, ISO 100, 70-200 mm lens at 200 mm

A redheaded woodpecker stands out in golden evening light in the front yard of John and Susan Persson's home along the Lake Michigan shoreline north of Summit Park. I was looking for wildflowers to photograph when someone else spotted several woodpeckers. F4.0 at 1/250, ISO 800, 500 mm lens at 500 mm

Earlier this morning we had a hard rainfall that left large puddles along the sides of the road going through Stearns Park in Ludington. With the wind off of Lake Michigan and the sun shining down, the puddles became beautiful reflecting pools. F9.0 at 1/250, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 50 mm

I am back in the same orchard along Pere Marquette Highway near Kistler Road to take a picture at 11:00 A.M. as part of a worldwide photo shoot sponsored by the New York Times. This time I will include the blossoms I chose to leave out two days ago when the opportunity to photograph children playing in the dandelions presented itself. F7.1 at 1/250, ISO 100, 12-24 mm lens at 24 mm

My wife Betsy and I left for Hawaii today. While we were flying over the mountains in California on our way to the Los Angles airport, I used my iPhone and took this photo out the window of the airplane. I loved the patterns on the Earth in the foreground of the photograph. The patterns helped create a very three-dimensional feel to this photograph. F2.8 at 1/1000, ISO 70, iPhone camera

I'm a sucker for dandelions and this is turning out to be a great year to photograph them. Today I find them to be a colorful component in a picture of Kevin and Nancy Hansen's centennial farm, along with Victory Trinity Lutheran Church and some of the Victory Township countryside. F11.0 at 1/500, ISO 400, 80-200 mm lens at 145 mm