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Perhaps erected in a vain attempt to keep sand from blowing toward a nearby summer cottage, fencing looked more like a snow sculpture on a January morning at Epworth Heights resort.

A mystic morning greets me. Fog bathes the Buttersville Peninsula outside our Crosswinds home. The scene looks subtly beautiful and makes waking up without our sidekick Beamer momentarily more bearable. Life without your lab is simply not as good. F5.0 at 1/320, ISO 100, 105 mm lens at 105 mm

I had seen extremely blue ice on television and in other people's photographs, but I had never witnessed it myself. For Week 8 of "Tuesdays with Todd and Brad Reed," my dad and I drove four hours north to photograph the Mackinac Straits area. As we drove down a steep hill and got our first look at the straits, we knew we had hit the jackpot. In front of us were miles and miles of massive piles of neon blue ice.

Heaven Blessed

Sunset at Stearns Beach on a Thursday

Keeping On

Independence Day

Falling

A lone tree in a farm field stands out in any season, but especially during the heart of winter. Fields with lone trees are common throughout the Point to Point area. Besides adding beauty, many of them have provided shade for up to a century or more of both farmers and farm animals.

This view from high atop Big Point Sable Lighthouse shows the layers of dunes and forest between Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake and reveals the vastness and beauty of the remote northern area of Ludington State Park. Brad and I climbed to the top of the lighthouse on an early November morning and sat in the dark, anxiously awaiting sunrise. The light and atmosphere that appeared was well worth the chilly wait.

Chuck Wagon pizza is one of the main icons of Ludington. I told owner Rick Chapman we couldn't do a 365 Project without including a photograph of Chuck Wagon. Zach Gipe, one of my previous students when I was an elementary school teacher, was eager to throw some dough for my photograph. F2.8 at 1/60, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 23 mm

The lookout on M22 between Elberta and Arcadia is one of our favorite spots to stop and look for photographs of Lake Michigan. On this particularly windy day, I hiked to the top of the tall flight of stairs to photograph from the stable platform at the top. It was worth the hike.

This morning I photographed McLaren Lake near Hesperia at sunrise. I loved seeing the sunlight shining through the top of the trees and mixing with the fog.

After careful risk assessment, my son Brad has worked his way to the top of one of the tallest mounds of ice piled high in the Straits of Mackinac. He is determined to make a close-up image of one of the nature-made ice sculptures with the Mackinac Bridge as the backdrop. Knowing from my many years of ice rescue training in the Coast Guard that "no ice is safe ice," I am standing by with an assortment of ice rescue gear to assist if necessary.

Workshop at Ludington State Park

Hoffmaster Shores

365 Week 07

Let the Sunlight In

The moon’s “cheese” was not only highly visible but took on a beautiful golden red hue during the lunar eclipse on September 27, 2015. At this point, the moon was almost totally eclipsed. I ended up liking this image better than my total eclipse shot because I felt that the slight highlight of the uneclipsed edge made the photograph more exciting and more three-dimensional looking.

Finding the Angles