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In my mind's eye, I see this picture as all about patterns and not at all about color. Any of the color seems distracting so I make an image to emphasize the pattern and tonal values, knowing I will remove any color later. F18 at 1/125, ISO 100, 24-70mm lens at 70mm

Bay Harbor in Petoskey is an enchanting place full of beautiful homes and wonderful people. This tree, near the main entrance on US31, grabbed my attention as I was driving by. I turned my truck around and made a 30 second exposure. I love how the final image turned out. D800, F16 at 30 seconds, ISO 100, 70-200mm lens at 78mm

Our workshop students were up to their waists in dewy grasses before sunrise and many of them were on their knees getting their cameras immediate to the wildflowers, grasses and weeds in a field near our Pere Marquette River property. I got down low beside them to immerse myself in the tapestry of spring growth. Six a.m. never looked better to me.

Wagner Falls Near Munising

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.

Every spring since I was a very small child, I have spent time in the Michigan woods with my family looking for morel mushrooms. Today, I had the amazing honor of hunting for the elusive mushrooms with one of the best morel mushroom hunters in North America. Roger Thurow, a Scottville, Michigan native, has won the national morel mushroom hunting championship multiple times. He took me to a few of his favorite spots and showed me the ways of a master. I will never forget this day. My wife, Betsy, and our kids enjoyed eating the bounty.

I don't know who was smiling bigger when the sun finally came out today, this sunflower or me. As the famous National Geographic photographer Sam Abell might say, I was "in the presence of a picture."

Mid-May is one of my favorite times of the year. The woodlands are coming to life and there seems to be a new visual discovery to be made at every turn. I love the way trillium were blooming at the base of a tree trunk along M22 near Empire.

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

Wagner Falls Near Munising

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.

Maple trees planted when horse and buggy traveled a country lane now tower over anything or anyone passing their way. The stretch of Decker Road, between Ludington and Scottville, is one of the few country roadways in the area that remain more of a lane a road. Because of its natural look and the magnificent maples, it has long been one of my favorite spots to drive through and to photograph.

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.

Sleepy Time – Brad Reed While my aunt Sheryl was vacuuming her living room, she looked through the large picture window and noticed a fawn sleeping peacefully in her pachysandra bushes right next to the house. She immediately called my dad and me and we rushed over with our cameras. I put my lens right on the glass of the window and made this image. I love the heart shape of the bushes that surrounds the beautiful sleeping fawn. Nikon D800. F1.4 at 1/640, ISO 100. 85mm lens at 85mm. On a tripod without a flash. May 13, 2014 at 9:59am.

I love seeing the Michigan countryside flowers. Sweet pea along a farm fence line looked as pretty to me as any flower arrangement I can imagine. I am glad that I took a less-traveled road on this July 2017 day while meandering between Whitehall and Hart.

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.

Frost backlit by the rising sun highlights the shapes and shadowy forms of milkweed pods. I know the extreme range of tonal values will enable me to expose for the highlights and render the shadows darker and more dramatic than my eye is seeing.

Dreamscape

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.