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In the last few years my dad and I have gotten pretty good at doing a snow dance in order to help entice Mother Earth to give us some snow to photograph. Earlier this morning when it was gray and raining my dad and I both did snow dances. I guess they finally worked!

Wednesday Oceana County

Looking to the Skies

This is the view in front of the home my family is renting for the week on Portage Lake near Onekama, Michigan. I have been building this photo in my head since the moment we arrived. Now that it is Wednesday, I have my camera and tripod ready to shoot the sunrise. The hardest part of making this photograph was figuring out how to turn off the automatic sprinklers.

Workshop

As another photo hunting day dawned, I was searching along the shores of Hamlin Lake for a winter picture when I spotted a patch of open water. Some Canada geese and mute swans had already found one of the only unfrozen spots on the huge lake.

Orvis the dog watched intently as professional fishing guide Chris “Uber” Raines defied the wintery weather to fly fish for steelhead on a flies-only stretch of the Pere Marquette River near Baldwin. The stretch of the National Wild and Scenic River known as the Claybanks looked like a winter wonderland as the biggest, stickiest snowflakes I had ever seen clung to everything in sight. “There is something almost magical about standing in the river as the water sweeps past you and the snow is coming down; it’s mesmerizing,” Raines said. This was a perfect day for die-hard fishermen, Labrador Retrievers and photographers. It didn’t start out that way. January 17, 2012, started out with pouring rain. Brad and I had committed to a yearlong book project, photographing Michigan all day each Tuesday of the year. This was the third Tuesday, so we had to find a way to make good images despite the ugly weather. We say, “bad is good” in outdoor photography, meaning that often the best images are made in the worst weather. I spotted and photographed misty-looking Emerson Lake near Walhalla with a giant weeping willow in the foreground making the scene appear more mystic. Ten more miles down the road Brad spotted a scene sure to brighten the gloomiest shooting day—bright red winter berries amidst cattails. The rain and mist softened the swampy background and made the winter berries rocket out of the scene far more than they would on a sunny day. Even with two good images in the bank, it looked like a very challenging day to make strong book images that would wow people. But onward we went; we were not about to give up. Michigan would surely find a way to deliver on her worst day. By mid-morning we had worked our way to the Pere Marquette Lodge Orvis fishing shop south of Baldwin, hoping to learn where we could photograph some trout fishermen. While owner Frank was obliging us by arranging for us to rendezvous with one of his guides who’d be doing some off-duty fishing, we noticed the rain was turning to snow. A half-hour later, when we started hiking a wooded trail to the river at Claybanks, the world had been transformed into a fairyland. Chris was hoping the fishing would be good. Brad and I knew at that point we were going to catch some magical photographic moments. We each did. This image wound up being my favorite shot of the entire year-long book project, during which I tripped the shutter more than 20,000 times. I sure was glad we overcame our gloomy attitudes at the start of that rainy morning and kept on keeping on. “Don’t be a quitter,” is a lesson my dad insistently taught me, and I’m glad the lesson stuck.

Generally, to make a powerful grand scenic photograph, you need a strong foreground, middle ground, and background. The trick is to get the three separate layers of the photograph to overlap in a way that the viewer's mind will not get bored and "leave" the photograph. You want to encourage the viewer's eye to move all around the photograph. The viewer will also tend to have a greater emotional interest in the piece of art.

Being a guide on the Pere Marquette River involves a lot of work, so being asked to stop and fish while guiding for a couple of photographers is, for Uber Raines, like being sent to trout heaven. I think this view shows why the Pere Marquette was chosen as a National Wild & Scenic River to preserve the natural beauty of the river and control public access to it. F4.5 at 1/400, ISO 800, 14-24mm lens at 16mm

Hamlin Lake in Fog During Workshop

A well-known fishing hole in front of our family cabin on a large bend in the Pere Marquette River looks tranquil in the sunshine this morning. We often try to put leading lines in the exact lower corners of our compositions. It is not an accident that the water and ice meet in the bottom left corner of this image.

One of the concepts my son Brad and I emphasize to our photography students is framing. Using something in the foreground to frame or partially frame an image provides immediacy, depth and added interest elements. I framed this shot shortly after sunrise at the beginning of November along the Lost Lake Trail.

Driving the scenic route home to Ludington tonight from the Muskegon State Park on Lake Michigan, I drove by White Lake long after sunset. I was shocked to see the beautiful afterglow in the distance. I pulled off the road, grabbed my camera, and made this image. Digital cameras see in the dark. It was much darker to the eye than this photograph appears.

Today we took a guided photo tour down the "fly only" zone of the Pere Marquette River near Baldwin. Our guide, Josh Mead, works for the Pere Marquette River Lodge. A few years ago Josh gave up the corporate rat race and became a full time guide and his new office is the Pere Marquette River. I think he is on to something! F6.3 at 1/160, ISO 800, 18-50mm lens at 18mm

I love black-and-white photographs. Driving around near Free Soil, this part of the North Branch of the Lincoln River was the black-and-white dream I was looking for.

Bass Lake boats bathe in magic light on a September morning. I spotted this scene weeks before making the photograph. The lighting had been ordinary on several wild goose chases to the spot. It is rewarding to finally see the quality of light a particular picture needs. It makes up for the frustration I feel over countless pictures that are in my visual library, but remains only mental images, because the right conditions have not yet appeared in front of my camera lens.

I photographed Ludington State Park for several hours on a glorious January morning after the biggest snowfall of the winter. Then it occurred to me that a spot where I had taken a photograph of fall color might also look spectacular in winter. A half-hour of hiking later, I was making this picture. The two shots show how places that are beautiful in one season may well be beautiful in another.