Abstract

I am obsessed with photographing water ripples. Some day we hope to do an entire book of these abstract ripple shots. Blue is my favorite color and I love how many different shades of blue appear in this photograph. The sky tonight was bright blue and had tons of huge white puffy clouds that reflected on the calm waters of Lake Michigan as we stood at the elbow of the breakwall in Ludington with several workshop students. Fuji S5. F2.8 at 1/400, ISO 100. 70-200mm lens at 200mm. On a tripod without a flash. July 2, 2009 at 7:51pm.

Water and foam swirl together on the Sable River to form a beautiful sea horse.

I am obsessed with photographing water ripples. Some day we hope to do an entire book of these abstract ripple shots. Blue is my favorite color and I love how many different shades of blue appear in this photograph. The sky tonight was bright blue and had tons of huge white puffy clouds that reflected on the calm waters of Lake Michigan as we stood at the elbow of the breakwall in Ludington with several workshop students. Fuji S5. F2.8 at 1/400, ISO 100. 70-200mm lens at 200mm. On a tripod without a flash. July 2, 2009 at 7:51pm.

The kids and I drove to Round Lake tonight. They used to spend time here when they would visit their grandma before she moved away. The reflections of the clouds on the water were a great subject to shoot.

The few secluded areas of the Silver Lake Sand Dunes strongly resemble whispering desert hills.

The Huron River makes its way through Ann Arbor and flows through sections of the University of Michigan's campus. Today the bright sunlight has caused the brilliant fall leaves to be reflected in the gorgeous river that was named in honor of the Huron Band of Native Americans. F2.8 at 1/2500, ISO 800, 70-200mm lens at 145mm

The howling winds off Lake Michigan and the bitter cold temperatures have turned the peaks of the Silver Lake Sand Dunes into a cavernous landscape. I lay on my stomach and got very close to a sculpted sand cave in order to lose the size perspective.

A compelling aspect of visual art is that different people may look at the same image and see different things. While I was composing this photograph, I noticed that the rocks, seaweed, and water resembled the face of an old man. I named this photograph with the hope that my viewers would enjoy the same illusion.

I love black and white photography. Today's bright overcast light, along with the varying tones of the sand, ice, and snow make for stunning images. I love how this sand formation looks like it could be part of the Grand Canyon.

As I was standing at the water's edge of Lake Michigan at the Ludington State Park with a workshop student, I saw one single leaf wash ashore. I quickly grabbed my camera and made this image. A moment later, a wave came and took the leaf back to sea. Nikon D800. F5.6 at 1/50, ISO 3200. 14-24mm lens at 24mm. Handheld without a flash. October 14, 2017 at 7:06pm.

I have always enjoyed taking photographs that may not feature identifiable subjects but show the beautiful colors and patterns that light creates on water. This photograph was taken on the Lake Michigan shoreline at sunset and is one of my favorites.

As I was standing at the water's edge of Lake Michigan at the Ludington State Park with a workshop student, I saw one single leaf wash ashore. I quickly grabbed my camera and made this image. A moment later, a wave came and took the leaf back to sea.

Fire wake

A crazy story - As many people know, the news was predicting a good Northern Lights show for a lot of Michigan on Saturday evening, including the Ludington Area. Saturday afternoon during the Michigan State vs. Michigan game, my app, Aurora Pro, alerted me that the current KP was a 7. Of course, because it was mid-day and sunny, you couldn’t see the Northern Lights overhead. I have seen the Northern Lights in Ludington at least twenty times, but only twice with a KP of 7 or higher. Both of those shows were out of this world and the lights were super visible to the human eye. So after a fun family gathering at my dad and stepmom’s for pizza Saturday night, I eagerly headed to the Ludington State Park to try and photograph the Northern Lights. I put on all my warmest heavy weather gear and got into position 30 yards south of the Beach House and stood right on the Lake Michigan shoreline. I knew I couldn’t see the Northern Lights with my eyes, but thought maybe my camera would pick them up. I made my first exposure at 8:26pm. That exposure was 70 seconds long. The camera picked up no Northern Lights. I was bummed, but I shot a few more images just to be sure. Still no luck. It was a beautiful, cold, clear night and the stars and Milky Way looked beautiful. I decided to move my camera on the tripod and aim straight West and almost straight up above my head to capture a long exposure of the Milky Way. I had my camera on manual metering like always. I adjusted my shutter speed to the Bulb setting. I had my aperture at F8 and my ISO at 800. I had my camera set to mirror lockup. That way, once I pushed the trigger on my cable release and locked it in, my camera would “shoot” a picture as long as the trigger was locked. After a few minutes of standing next to my camera as it was exposing, I decided to lay down on the shoreline and use my camera bag as a pillow to watch for shooting stars as my camera continued to expose the night sky. In true Brad fashion, I quickly fell asleep. I slept for an hour and ten minutes or so and woke up a bit dazed and confused. That seems to happen a lot since having Covid a few weeks ago. I slowly came to my feet and reached over and grabbed my cable release and unlocked the trigger and ended my exposure. That exposure was 4,415 seconds. The image that appeared on the back of the camera was mostly white, but I could see that it had picked up some star trails. We always shoot in camera raw. My dad, Rachel, and I all shoot with Nikon D850 camera bodies. I usually shoot the Northern Lights with my Nikkor 14-24mm lens at 14mm and that was the lens I had used Saturday night. The way D-SLR cameras work is when you shoot in camera raw, the camera body has it’s own processor inside of it (which is kind of its own version of Photoshop). The camera processes that raw image and spits out a pretty horrible looking jpeg on the back of the LCD screen. Those bad looking jpegs on the LCD screen always look washed out, anemic, with very little color, and “foggy”. We have learned to not base much in terms of quality off our LCD screens in the last 17 years of shooting digitally. I was not expecting much from my photo shoot Saturday night as I walked back to my truck. It was a nice night on the beach and it was a good nap. Fast forward to Monday afternoon. I finally downloaded my images yesterday at our gallery in downtown Ludington. I have attached a screen capture of the original raw file how it looked on the back of my camera and how it looked on my computer screen yesterday. You can see it looks white and washed out. Then I opened that raw file and made our standard moves to that image. You can see that screen capture as well. Again, these are our basic moves. The only three minor changes to this file versus our standard camera raw presets is I moved the clarity from 30 to 99. I moved the texture to 17 to help with the noise. I moved the blacks from -70 to -100. I moved the shadows from +70 to +100. These are standard moves for our Northern Light images. To my total shock, with those standard moves, the image showed an immense amount of red, orange, and yellow. The other cool thing I didn’t expect was that the stars seem to be moving in two different circles. I have never seen that before in one of our long exposure night sky images. Usually, the stars are all moving around the North Star. The other thing Rachel spotted instantly while looking at my computer screen with me was the giant red heart in the upper right portion of the photo. I am not a scientist or a Northern Lights expert, but I am pretty sure that my 73 and a half minute exposure did indeed pick up the Northern Lights.

Sometimes the simplest pictures are the best. At first I found myself looking and hoping for the presence of a duck or other added ingredient to this scene. The more I look, the more I see and appreciate the understated beauty of this stretch of the Pere Marquette River. F22.0 at 1/6, ISO 100, 300 mm lens at 300 mm

This 365 project presents many challenges. Among them is being limited to selecting just one image per day. I photographed this same snow-laden dock along the Pere Marquette River a couple days ago but opted for a different image as my final selection for that day. I am so pleased it looks just as intriguing to me this morning. F22.0 at 0.6, ISO 100, 300 mm lens at 300 mm

Experiencing this view on the evening of July 3, 2019, was the visual highlight of my 4th of July weekend. When I climbed to the top of a high dune along the Hamlin Lake shoreline after landing our pontoon boat, I was immediately stunned by the expansive dune view and the way the shadows were playing upon the sand. Footprints left by daytime visitors who had long since departed added interesting design elements to the scene. I was in sand dune heaven.

 While shooting the sunset out at the Ludington State Park, I was disappointed at the lack of color in the sky. The water however, was radiant and beautiful. I knew that I had to act quickly before the color and light disappeared. I thought about what I needed to do, changed lenses, and got off three shots before it had faded away and the water went back to normal. While I typically shoot the “grand scenic” type images, it paid off to step outside my comfort zone and challenge myself. I came out with an image that I absolutely love!

Except for four years of college in Grand Rapids, I have lived in Ludington all my life. In that time, I have always been intrigued with the old Thompson Cabinet Company building near Pere Marquette Lake. I was pleasantly surprised to find this American flag hanging in the window today. F10.0 at 0.8, ISO 100, 70-200 mm lens at 95 mm

Timbers and exposed iron bolts are all that remain of the Mary Jarecki, one of the many ships to founder along the Lake Superior shoreline. The shapes and patterns of the shipwreck fascinate me. F14 at 1/80, ISO 200, 14-24mm lens at 14mm