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Michigan's Pride

A water drop is about to fall from a small branch and my macro lens made an ordinary scene look extraordinary.

Victim of an eroding Lake Michigan shoreline, a tree uprooted years earlier is transformed into a snow sculpture on a dune at Epworth Heights north of Ludington. Finding scenes like this along the Lake Michigan shoreline confirms for me why I am a winter person. Winter is a photographer's friend.

The scenic Lakeshore Drive bridge, over the water intake area of the huge Ludington Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant, can provide surreal and vast night views. It can be as spectacular as a space scene from a "Star Trek" movie. On this August night, the visual impact of earthly lights and celestial lights over Lake Michigan stunned me as I rushed to find the best vantage point to capture this visual encounter.

Tonight there were more boats salmon fishing near the Ludington harbor than I have ever seen, and several of them were busy catching fish. I wanted to be out there fishing with my older brother, but he wasn't able to make it home this year. Maybe next year! F2.8 at 1/60, ISO 1000, 70-200 mm lens at 160 mm

I have photographed this tree on Kinney Road just east of Old US31 several times. Today, the clouds, fog, and radiant sunlight are all working together to make this scene look extraordinary. Photography is wonderful therapy and is good for my soul.

I like to call it the "Marne Barn" because I am always on the lookout for it when I pass by it on I-96 west of Marne. The Mart Egan & Sons barn is one of the prettiest, best kept barns in Michigan. On this snowy day I felt compelled to get off the freeway at Marne and find my way there to photograph it.

Big Sable Point Lighthouse has a lot of history. As for our family, both my brother Budde and son Tad got engaged at the top of the 1865 structure. On this April day, I made this image then spotted a couple at the water's edge obviously getting engaged. I recorded their historic moment with my camera from a distance and later gave them a photograph.

Kayakers enjoy the Michigan outdoors on West Bay in Traverse City while sailboats stay at their moorings until their crews have the time to get them back underway. Even an occasional voyage on Michigan waters tends to restore my soul. I am sure others feel reborn too when they set sail.

After traveling nearly 300 miles today photo hunting on a mostly gray day, experience tells me the sun may peak out as it approaches the horizon. I head to Ludington State Park and take up position on one of the tallest dunes on the shoreline. Sure enough, 20 minutes before sunset, the sun starts finding its way through cloud openings.

Workshop at Ludington State Park

Carferry Badger Last Sailing

Mirror of Heaven

A large farm near the border of Mason and Oceana Counties looks like the skyline view of Chicago over Lake Michigan. I can’t stop my truck quick enough to make this image.

The Ludington North Breakwater was underwater for a short time on April 13, 2018, at the height of one of the largest meteotsunamis ever observed on Lake Michigan in the Ludington area. I photographed the flooded pier (image top left) from the Ludington beach at Stearns Park moments after a fast-moving hail and rain storm swept ashore. Only nine minutes later, I captured the much lower than normal water level (image bottom left) as the flood waters washed back into Lake Michigan. Notice the shallowness of the water and the amount of boulders visible along the edge of the pier. According to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), two separate meteotsunamis occurred within a short time. GLERL said the meteotsunamis were caused by “short, extreme bursts of wind and pressure.” The Weather Channel reported that thunderstorms trigger most meteotsunamis. Small meteotsunamis are not unusual but destructive ones like this one tend to happen only once every 10 years on average, according to Eric Anderson of the research laboratory

My son Brad and I teach that 90 percent of a good outdoor photograph is about the light and or atmosphere. Three videographers were with me on a late January early evening that could best be described as gray on the emotional scale. They probably wondered why I was stopping along this country road with it getting so dark. However, I instantly saw, looking at Cherry Hill Farm, that the soft snowfall was creating a painterly, Christmas-card atmosphere that I could previsualize much brighter. A longer exposure would do just that but I needed the snowflakes to remain relatively distinct. Adding to my challenge, I wanted as much of the scene sharp as possible. The solution was to raise my ISO (digital sensor sensitivity speed) to a fast 3200, which allowed me to shoot at a relatively fast shutter speed (1/100th second) and still maintain a medium depth of field (f9). All I had to do now was slap down the tripod, mount the camera and trip the shutter. I have studied and photographed our Conrad Road neighbors’ farm for years. This image is one of my wintertime favorites

Carferry Badger leaving home Sailing off across Lake Moichigan

Carferry with Storm Clouds