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The Hartwick Pines State Park is one of Michigan's best-kept secrets. Located near Grayling, the park is full of pine trees that are several hundred years old. The park also has a log cabin style chapel that is open year round. With no electricity or heat, the chapel is often fairly dark inside and also cold in the winter. With my camera on a tripod, I overexposed this image to blow out the highlights so the cross would appear to be glowing. I also used my external flash to light up the Nature's Prayer below the cross.

Intense Emotion

Hammer Down

A salmon leaps halfway up a wall of cascading water at the Hamlin Dam. Thousands of salmon return to the Sable River each fall to spawn and to die. I love watching the powerful fish try in vain to leap to the top of the dam, which holds back the fish that work their way upstream on one side and holds back the waters of Hamlin Lake on the other.

The sand along the Lake Michigan shoreline looks like liquid gold tonight. It is incredible how a late September sunset can transform the appearance of the waterfront.

 We all wear many hats in our lives. Some have a greater priority over others, and it’s easy to forget about the ones that mean the most to you and your heart. I’ve decided it’s time to dust off my Photographer hat, and put it back on. I’m excited to focus and set aside some time for my personal work and projects that I’ve been dreaming about for years. My children all love to get their cameras and tripods out (well Joshua likes to pretend anyway). I’m looking forward to helping them learn the way of photography. I’m excited to continue to share my work with family and friends!

Exploring Michigan

As I made my personal journey of photographing the Ludington State Park, I relished the opportunity to explore areas of the park that I had never seen before. It seemed that over every dune and behind every pine row there was a whole new world to discover and photograph. I knew when I found this section of dead trees that there was a great picture waiting to be made. I sat on the small sand mound for 10 minutes waiting for the light to hit the trees and give them life again.

Fall Tapestries

Heaven Blessed

Falling

This view from high atop Big Point Sable Lighthouse shows the layers of dunes and forest between Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake and reveals the vastness and beauty of the remote northern area of Ludington State Park. Brad and I climbed to the top of the lighthouse on an early November morning and sat in the dark, anxiously awaiting sunrise. The light and atmosphere that appeared was well worth the chilly wait.

The moon’s “cheese” was not only highly visible but took on a beautiful golden red hue during the lunar eclipse on September 27, 2015. At this point, the moon was almost totally eclipsed. I ended up liking this image better than my total eclipse shot because I felt that the slight highlight of the uneclipsed edge made the photograph more exciting and more three-dimensional looking.

Finding the Angles

Anyone lucky enough to be standing on the storm-flooded Lake Michigan beach near the Second Curve on October 18, 2007, at 6:49:21 p.m., would have been overwhelmed by the scene before his or her eyes. This was an incredible moment in time, obviously a beautiful, powerful view. But there was something more: an unreal, out-of-this world quality, a feeling that comes to me only when I witness some of the most rare natural phenomenons. A meteotsunami (meteorological tsunami) had flooded the beach.

Photos do lie! This photo looks like it was a warm night on the Ludington City Beach. In reality, a storm was blowing in and the wind was bitter cold. It was a great night of shooting the sunset with friends.

I came upon this scene while hiking along the Coast Guard Trail near Hamlin Lake. Staying as quiet as possible, not to appear threatening to the fearless hawk, I slowly set up my camera and tripod. The hawk accepted my presence and began the grisly process of eating its prey. The fur from the squirrel's beautiful tail fluttered in the wind. As is often nature’s way, the scene was a visual and emotional paradox; so deadly, yet so beautiful. I went away saddened but exhilarated, focusing on the beauty and knowledge that what I had just witnessed was natural and necessary.

Little Sable in Fall Splendor