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Small items in nature can have a large impact on the surrounding area, both physically and visually. These leaves were the only spot of color on a vast dune at the Ludington State Park.

I enter a dark woods off of Piney Ridge Road and soon come to a wall of sand. I start to ascend the massive sand giant, stopping occasionally to let the burning in my legs recede. It is a race. Photographer versus the sunlight of early morning. I crest the peak and turn to the east to see if I've won. I notice beautiful yellow flowers at my feet. I get into position and only have to wait two minutes for the sun. Beautiful!

Photographers should pay farmers to grow sunflowers! When I think of million dollar view, I think of a field of sunflowers in the country as with this scene found along Beyer Road in northern Mason County. I pray the farmers who grow them make a handsome profit to continue to plant them.

Wednesday (3378)

When I was a boy, I loved to slip silently through a field of knapweed in search of bumblebees to capture. Now, just looking at and photographing the knapweed is reward enough. Throw in the Lake Michigan shoreline north of Ludington for a backdrop, and I am in visual heaven!

Mid-May is one of my favorite times of the year. The woodlands are coming to life and there seems to be a new visual discovery to be made at every turn. I love the way trillium were blooming at the base of a tree trunk along M22 near Empire.

Dreamscape

Sleepy Time – Brad Reed While my aunt Sheryl was vacuuming her living room, she looked through the large picture window and noticed a fawn sleeping peacefully in her pachysandra bushes right next to the house. She immediately called my dad and me and we rushed over with our cameras. I put my lens right on the glass of the window and made this image. I love the heart shape of the bushes that surrounds the beautiful sleeping fawn. Nikon D800. F1.4 at 1/640, ISO 100. 85mm lens at 85mm. On a tripod without a flash. May 13, 2014 at 9:59am.

Often when my dad and I travel together in his truck on photo adventures and he is driving, I am worn out by the later afternoon. It is a common occurrence for me to take a nap in the truck while he continues to look for photographs. Today at Stocking Drive at the Sleeping Bear Dunes, I woke up from a long nap to find my dad photographing some trillium he had found alongside the road. I dragged myself out of the truck and grabbed my camera and started looking for my own photographs. Soon I was full of adrenaline and wide-awake making this image of a lone trillium. Nikon D800. F2.8 at 1/5000, ISO 1600. 14-24mm lens at 14mm. Handheld without a flash. May 16, 2017 at 4:49pm

This is the view from the top of the De Zwaan Windmill, located in Windmill Island in Holland, Michigan. Mesmerized by the endless fields of tulips, I locked in on this particular area of one field. I patiently waited for the sunlight to reappear from behind a large cloud and then for the wind to die down enough to make the photograph I had envisioned. D800, F11 at 1/320, ISO 1600, 70-200mm lens at

The older I get, the less pressure I feel to fit in with the crowd. My parents have always taught me to be comfortable being myself, but sometimes that comfort doesn't come for people until they are older. I was inspired looking at these red tulips and how they stood out from the crowd. I shot them with my 85mm 1.4 lens at an aperture of 1.4 so that the extremely shallow depth of field made them sharp and all the other tulips blurry.

My dad and I often tell our photography workshop students they need to think of themselves as puppeteers. We try to control exactly where the viewers of our work will first look in our photographs. By using a super-telephoto 600mm lens as well as a 1.4 extender, I had a very shallow depth of field. Then I moved within 15 feet of the flower, which is as close as that lens will focus. Finally, I set my aperture to F5.6 in order to have the shallowest depth of field possible. This combination of lens choice, closeness, and aperture helped me isolate one tulip in this photograph.

Thanks to our friend, Mike Schlitt, and a few other members of the Charleviox Camera Club, my dad and I found out about this iris farm on M72 between Traverse City and Empire. Several families were there this evening paying to pick their own flowers. It is such a wonderful place for people of all ages.

Mary Shoup was an amazingly upbeat person. Even after suffering from polio and its nasty side effects for most of her life, Mary continued to smile and make it her mission to make others happy. Her life was cut short, but when I saw this wild iris growing in Hamlin Lake on the Island Trail at Ludington State Park, I was reminded of what a beautiful person Mary was.

 

 

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.

 For years I have wanted to visit Cherry Point Farm’s lavender labyrinth located in Shelby, Michigan. On July 21st, I decided to head south a little bit and soak up the lavender. While it wasn’t peak timing, I was still able to make an image that I loved, and the experience was well worth the short drive. I look forward to taking my kids back to share the labyrinth with them!

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.