Search

Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan is always a fun and beautiful celebration to be a part of. Team Reed loves to explore all the public tulip gardens with our cameras. We recommend photographing the tulips with the largest telephoto lens that you can so that you can have a super shallow depth of field. I shot these with a 600mm lens with a 1.4 extender at 850mm.

I have always enjoyed the challenge of building strong, unique compositions utilizing reflections. In order to get the building, red roof, and tower of Au Sable Point Lighthouse to show up in the reflection, I had to lie on my stomach in Lake Superior. Thankfully, it has been a record breaking warm winter, but the water temperature still had my full attention. F8 at 1/200, ISO 100, 18-50mm lens at 18mm

Manistee harbor has been a busy shipping, fishing and industrial port since the mid-1800s. This morning a lone recreational fishing boat trolls past the handsomely restored carferry SS City of Milwaukee on Manistee Lake. F22 at 1/10, ISO 400, 80-200mm lens at 100mm

Sunset Off Stearns Park Beach

Isle Royal

Ludington Lighthouse During Workshop

Big Sable in Magic Light After Rainbow

DaVincis Dream

Ludington Beach R

Curtains of Light

The first two weeks of October are a glorious time of year along the Lake Michigan shoreline. For several decades, I have told my photography students more often than they want to hear, “Clouds are your friends.” Early October is a great time to experience sunshine, fresh breeze and crisp, clear air painted with billowy clouds. When these conditions exist, the dune grasses and beaches appear most alive, and so do I! I visualized this image months before making it about 2001 when we lived near Lake Michigan at Crosswinds south of Ludington. My beloved Labrador retriever Beamer and I passed this spot during our daily hikes through the dunes to and from the beach. For several months, this particular stand of dune grass stood out to me from hundreds of others. I wouldn’t let Beamer go near it because I knew it had the makings of a great image; I imagined what the scene would look like in the sharp “magic light” of October. One early October morning, as Beamer and I were passing by this special spot, there it was! Mother Nature had brought all the ingredients together. All I had to do was turn around and take Beamer back home, grab my Nikon F100 and tripod and finish making the photograph. Since I had the image designed in my mind for months, all that was left to do now was fine-tune it artistically and nail it technically. That meant applying years of experience to make certain I made a perfect exposure on the Fuji Velvia transparency film I was using at the time. Almost two decades later, this image remains one of my favorite lakeshore images because it is so experiential for me and others. Brad and I say good photography is all about feeling. I can touch, taste and smell this image. I think a lot of other people feel the same way. The image puts me there; it puts others there.

Among the most amazing nights on Lake Michigan are those when the color in the sky refuses to diminish even when the viewer's mind says it is too dark to be so vivid. I could no longer see the camera controls on this night when the sea and sky turned black and blue.

My sister-in-law Misty Reed likes to imagine that the little feather in this photograph represents her and the big feather represents her husband, my older brother, Tad. I am not sure how the feathers got stuck upright in the sand, but I love the dreamy mood of this photograph.

The first day of shooting for the 365 Project and I finally feel like I have a purpose with my shooting. With my anxiety of not knowing what our next project would be lifted, the world is instantly clearer to me and I see photos everywhere I look. I am off to photograph the Badger in a snowstorm. F8.0 at 1/20, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 18 mm

My wife Betsy has eyes that look like sunflowers. I have always wanted to photograph one of them with my macro lens. This 365 Project has allowed me the artistic freedom and motivation that I haven't felt since I got my first digital SLR back in January of 2004. I feel like I am getting closer to where I want to be as an artist. F4.8 at 1/20, ISO 800, 105 mm lens at 105 mm

The former Coast Guard Cutter Snohomish looks shipshape docked on Pere Marquette Lake at the Lake Michigan Carferry docks. The privately owned 110-foot tug was built in 1943. F4.0 at 1/125, ISO 200, 12-24 mm lens at 24 mm

I can get lost every spring in the beauty of gardens full of tulips in Holland, Michigan. I love studying all that color and finding the picture within the picture - a tulip or two that stands out in the crowd.