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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.

Finally, I am headed to get the kids. It will be so nice to wrap my arms around them. As I am headed over the river flats on old Pere Marquette highway, the sun is out and shining on the water. I can see the gorgeous reflections lighting up the river. I decide to take a few minutes to pull over and compose this image.

Julia made a nice putt tonight while she, Ethan, and I were playing mini golf at the Ludington Jaycees Mini Golf at Stearns Beach. The newly redone course is a Ludington treasure and I have always loved the Badger hole. I have great memories of playing this same course with my dad and my brother when I was little, so it is super fun for me to play it now with my kids..

We don’t usually shoot commission photographs for people, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to photograph Lon Reader’s 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX convertible with a 426 Hemi and a 4-speed manual transmission. Lon was getting ready to sell this car that he had purchased in high school several decades ago. He wanted a picture to help him remember this classic American car.

Brad’s friends Jonathan and Shannon Ray gave me this mug. I thought the details of it were exquisite!

We spent most of the day getting ready for fair. Before I knew it, it was almost 10 o’clock! David Benjamin brought his cactus plant out and said I could take a picture of it. I looked at it closely for a second, thought of a way to shoot it, and told him what a great idea that was!

Today was Julia’s very first day of golf practice ever. Julia has decided to try out for the Ludington High School girls golf team. She is new to the game of golf, but already loves it. As she was standing there at Lincoln Hills with her golf bag on her back and her awesome muscles showing, I couldn’t resist embarrassing her and making her pose for a cell phone shot to document this fun moment.

As I was driving down Bryant Road, I spotted a cloud that was perfectly heart shaped. I pulled into the soccer field parking lot on Lavinia and grabbed my camera from the back of my truck as quickly as I could. By the time I could make the image, the clouds had moved, and it no longer looked like a heart. I almost didn’t shoot, but then I realized the clouds now looked like two eagle eyes and a beak.

Brad and the kids came out to the fairgrounds for dinner tonight. After we finished eating, some of the kids were riding bikes and scooters on the campground roads. Others were drawing pictures in chalk on the pavement. Julia drew this and it called to me to make a photograph of it.

The Marble family had a big gathering today out at my Uncle Rod’s house near Hamlin Lake. I have always loved his rebuilt 1958 Chevy pickup truck, so today I decided to try and make a nice photograph of it with my big camera. You should see the engine and the maple pickup bed!

Dwight “Scotty” Scott was my step-grandpa. As a little kid, I loved my Papa Scotty. I spent a lot of time at his restaurant Scotty’s in Ludington. Unfortunately, his original restaurant, Scotty’s Wren’s Roost, located on the middle bayou of Hamlin Lake, had burned to the ground a year before I was born. A family friend gave me an original coffee mug from there and I photographed it tonight.

There are so many fun things you can do with your camera. You can take a basic everyday item and turn it into a unique photograph. Here, I took a notebook of Kasey’s and used it for my photo of the day.

I am always on the lookout for hearts in nature. I spotted this red heart in a pudding stone tonight while golfing at Lincoln Hills Golf Course in Ludington. When I got home and examined the photo closer, I noticed two more upside down hearts in the photograph. Three red hearts in one photo were pretty exciting!

For an early birthday present, Rachel bought us tickets to go parasailing over Grand Traverse Bay together. It was something I had always wanted to do. At first, she was more nervous than me, but once we got up into the air, she was all smiles and calm as could be. I was the one who was having to work really hard to relax and not freak out. I love this photo of her I made with my cell phone.

Brad can be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I am not. Parasailing seemed to be just the right combination for a surprise birthday gift to him. To my surprise, I loved it! We had a blast, and definitely want to do it again with the kids!

The new trout statue in downtown Baldwin is incredibly well done and is a magnificent work of art. As my mom and I were on the way to Legends Ranch to photograph the Veteran’s Hunt, we stopped to make this image of the towering fish. I used my external flash to highlight the details in the sculpture.

Since I was a young boy, my Papa Bill would convince his musician friends to play live music for us at family gatherings or his famous barn parties. One of the staple musicians has always been Al Villadsen and his concertina. Al played again for us today at Wilson Park on Hamlin Lake as we enjoyed our annual Labor Day Marble family reunion.

The Wright Family at Thundering Aspens Hunt Club in Mesick have outdone themselves again. Today they let us be some of the first hunters to try their new hunting clays course. Of course, my Uncle Budde beat all of us with his trusted double barrel 20-gauge Winchester shotgun, but we all had fun. Along the way, I spotted this heart-shaped rock and had to stop and make an iPhone image of it.

After getting the kids ready for the first day of school tomorrow, darkness fell quickly. I was not sure what to make for my photo today. I was running out of ideas when Kasey jokingly brought out a mermaid that grew in water. It was larger than my hand but very odd in texture. I made several different images at various shutter speeds while moving the mermaid. I was happy with the way this shot turned out.

Storm clouds can be mesmerizing as they rapidly fly across the sky. These particular clouds seemed to have a wave motion to them. I waited for them to position themselves above the trees in the way that I was envisioning.