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Lights Over the Hamlin Dunes

Four Carferries

 I'm not a fan of the cold. I actually really dislike it. What I do love though is shooting. I will withstand freezing cold temperatures and wind chill, if it means I can get my camera in my hand and experience the beauty that surrounds me. To some it's fun to shoot when the weathers great, but to me, I long to shoot through it all!

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.

I am a total creature of habit. When I am out driving around looking for photographs, I have realized that I always drive to the same places and take the same roads. Today I forced myself to find a road I had never been down. This scene was a great surprise when I turned east on Jagger Road off of Jebavy Drive. F22.0 at 0.4, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 35 mm

A setting full moon greets us as Brad and I wait for dawn's early light. The light of the moon should give us a jump on spotting a snowy owl we know is hanging out in a West Michigan field.

Winter Workshop

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.

Since I was a young child, I have been fascinated by the carferries and other large ships that traffic Ludington Harbor. This statue of a mariner stands tall and proud, very much like the ship captains I have been privileged to know.

This 365 project presents many challenges. Among them is being limited to selecting just one image per day. I photographed this same snow-laden dock along the Pere Marquette River a couple days ago but opted for a different image as my final selection for that day. I am so pleased it looks just as intriguing to me this morning. F22.0 at 0.6, ISO 100, 300 mm lens at 300 mm

I never tire of photographing the Ludington lighthouse, especially when it looks as magical as on this frigid January morning. I have gotten in place before sunrise, anticipating sun and steam as soon as the sun can hit the lighthouse and Lake Michigan waters around it.

Traveling byways instead of freeways and highways is slower but gives me more new places to discover and more time to appreciate the views. After years of traveling byways throughout Michigan, I was stunned on January 31, 2017, during a meandering back roads drive through Oceana County to discover a barn I had never seen before. My view through snowflakes of this distinctive old barn made it seem to me like I could have been looking at an Andrew Wyeth painting. I had been an Andrew Wyeth fan for years; I think he could not have resisted painting this barn on this winter’s day if he had been there instead of me. The falling snow and blanket of snow on the barn roof and ground added to and emphasized the limited color palette of the scene. I loved the muted color of the grasses sticking out of the snow. I had only to find the best position from which to fit the layers of the scene perfectly together and “paint” the arrangement with light on the sensor of my Nikon D800 digital camera.

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.

Calm Night In Pentwater

Ludington New Years Eve Ball Drop

“Ice Break” and “Big Toot and Friends”

What a difference a day or so makes in Michigan! Before the infamous Bomb Cyclone winter storm hit Michigan in February 2019, I was drawn to the Ludington waterfront on a sunny morning to photograph three tugboats moored along the shore. I was happy with my shot. When the storm crossed over Lake Michigan from Wisconsin several days later, Ludington harbor looked more like Siberia. I knew right where to head to make a another good, but extremely different photograph.

Kitch-Iti-Kipi

Calm Night In Pentwater - panoramic

Ludington New Years Eve Ball Drop