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Too magical to be real, a white horse made an already beautiful Michigan fall color view truly magnificent. One never knows what wonder will appear when traveling the byways of West Michigan.

My aunt and uncle, Sue and Randy Marble, just purchased a large canvas of this photograph of the White Birch Forest. This incredible forest is about 16 miles west of Grand Marais on Alger County Road H-58. The first week of October is often a good time to visit the White Birch Forest to see the surrounding maple trees in peak fall color. D800, F2.8 at 1/320, ISO 100, 300mm lens at 300mm

Dwarfed by the forest, a cross-country skier glides silently along the Logging Trail on one of those winter days that winter lovers live for. I have skied the Logging Trail so many times I have memorized the views that will greet me over the next hill or around the next curve. Yet I never tire of my Logging Trail journeys. There is something comforting about knowing a place. It is a feeling like home.

Red pine trees are known for growing tall and straight in Michigan but one or more severe windstorms has obviously impacted this forest near Free Soil, Michigan. Many of the trees have been left bent to varying degrees. F10 at 1/500, ISO 800, 80-200mm lens at 200mm

Participants in one of our advanced photography weekend workshops were in photography heaven when Mother Nature blasted the woodlands with snow overnight. We didn’t have far to go to find good pictures. This was the view within a couple hundred yards of the workshop’s basecamp–Jim and Carole Smith’s Hamlin Lake lodge cottage on the border of the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness. While assisting Carole and other photographers in making photographs of their choice, I was attracted to the way the snow had “painted” this big tree trunk and the smaller trees surrounding it.

A diseased tree had split in half about four feet up from the ground and a bird made a beautiful little nest in the remaining top of the stump. I put my 14mm wide-angle lens extremely close to the nest. This photograph was taken close up yet does not look like a typical close-up. With a wide-angle lens, if you do not get very close to the subject, the subject will look tiny and the photograph will often lack emotional impact.

I thank God for this glorious view from the Lake Michigan bluff high above Arcadia. After years of looking, I finally found a vantage point that gave me an unobstructed view of this church steeple amidst a sea of hardwood tree canopies in full fall color.

Buckley Rollway

Buckley Rollway

Buckley Rollway

Buckley Rollway

Buckley Rollway

Buckley Rollway

My favorite part of this photo is the tiny bit of green in the bottom of the composition. The snow was so thick and sticky that in less than two hours it completely transformed a dark, dreary forest and creek into a winter paradise.

Tuesdays With Todd and Brad Reed

My uncle, Rod Marble, has owned a beautiful log cabin on the Lincoln River at the end of Anderson Road in Mason County for over 25 years. All year I look forward to driving down his road in the fall. Today was particularly picturesque.

Triangles and s-curves make for strong compositions in art and this photograph has both. Because of those elements, this photograph looks much more three dimensional than a lot of my other photographs. I also like how the reddish-brown oak leaves show up despite the sticky snow.

Tuesdays With Todd and Brad Reed