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Buckley Rollway

My ex-wife Betsy’s husband Sean owns the Sierra Sands Family Lodge in Silver Lake. Julia, Ethan, and their stepbrother Aiden live at the hotel part of the year. Today we decided to watch the Super Bowl at their home inside the hotel. Before the game, I headed to Little Sable Point Lighthouse with my camera to shoot the sunset.

I started this morning trying to shoot the sunrise over Bear Lake in Manistee County, but the clouds were blocking the sun. I decided to take roads I had never driven westward toward Lake Michigan. Eventually I came upon a glorious horse farm built on rolling hills less than a mile from the Lake Michigan shoreline. The farm is on a road lined with huge maple trees. Fortunately for me, the sun finally came out while I was setting up this shot.

This is one of my top three favorite photographs I have ever made. It seems to create a powerful emotional response when people view it for the first time. I think people relate the human struggle to the lone horse trudging through the deep snow in a blizzard. The legal name of the horse was Ultra Vanity Fair. A few years after making this image, she passed away. I am glad the she will live on forever in this piece of art.

A stretch of the Pere Marquette River known as the Claybanks looks like a winter fairytale world this morning as the biggest, stickiest snowflakes I have ever seen cling to everything in sight. Professional fishing guide Chris "Uber" Raines appears oblivious to the elements as he fly fishes for steelhead.

The bow of the fish tug Joy is covered with snow on Valentine's Day at Leland, Michigan. The fish tug Janice Sue lies at her mooring on the opposite side of the channel.

Icy Morning in Muskegon

Manistee Night

Buckley Rollway

For years, my mom's family has called this the "deer shack." We would use the old wood stove inside the abandoned shack for a venison fry and all my aunts, uncles and cousins would have a hoedown. Unfortunately, time has taken its toll on the old house and the roof has started to cave in. F5.6 at 1/200, ISO 500, 18-50 mm lens at 50 mm

If you have not made a journey to Leland, Michigan, I highly recommend you make it a point to visit. Leland's most famous attribute is Fishtown, a historic Lake Michigan commercial fishing village. Leland is on M22 at the mouth of the Leland River. If you time your visit correctly, you can watch the two working fish tugs, Janice Sue and Joy, unload their catches of Lake Michigan whitefish.

365 Week

Today was a difficult day. When my tasks at work are very systematic and methodical, it is hard to shut that off and let my creative eyes SEE possible compositions. It is past sunset and I have not clicked the shutter yet. I stop at the Custer bridge, grab my camera and tripod, and hope that I can make an image I would be proud of. I carefully took several shots, and then sat there in the silence.

The scene before me reminded me of mountains I have seen and skied down with my sons in backcountry areas of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. These "mountains" are actually sand dunes in the southern part of Ludington State Park. On this day, I enjoyed the mountainous look that an unusually heavy snowfall had helped create.

My uncle, Rod Marble, and a few other woodworkers helped the late Jim Roussin build this beautiful wood boat. As a young boy growing up in Ludington, I would always get excited seeing the Liberty underway. I am not sure when she was last in the water, but I hope to see her afloat soon. F8.0 at 1/50, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 24 mm

I had to smile the moment this snowman greeted me with a smile on his face in the alley near our photo gallery this morning. He definitely appears to be enjoying winter. I love winter as much as when I was a child building my first snowman. F3.5 at 1/1250, ISO 400, 80-200 mm lens at 86 mm

My son, Brad Reed, is in his element as he photographs one of the most beautiful snowfalls in years in the Manistee National Forest near Baldwin, Michigan. Brad is dressed for success and his camera equipment is built to withstand the elements. This wet snow will be a good field test for his new Nikon D7000 camera.

Venus and Jupiter have been very close together and bright in the night sky the last month or so and I have finally made a photo of them that I am proud of. Tonight, I took a 28-minute exposure of Little Sable Point Lighthouse and the two planets. Venus is the really bright streak and Jupiter is the dimmer one right next to it. If you look closely at the horizon you can also see the lights from Wisconsin; that only happens a few times a year. F8 at 28 minutes, ISO 100, 18-50mm lens at 18mm

Lincoln River in Front of Rods Shack

Of course there is no midnight sun in Michigan, but I could not resist naming this winter Lake Michigan shoreline image after the midsummer Arctic phenomenon.