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Nikon D850. F8 at 1/6400. 60-600mm lens at 600mm. June 7, 2020 at 5:28pm.

It is a dark, rainy September day but I keep reminding myself we are always preaching to our photography workshop students that bad weather is good weather for photographers. I just have to find the good. From my truck, the apples trees in a Mason County orchard do not look attractive. But when I move 20 times closer and throw in a little light from my truck headlights, these apples look better than candy apples at a country fair.

A wave curls, nestling us in an exotic underwater abode.

The early morning light and beach scene plays against the shape of the Little Point Sable lighthouse.

This contented cow and her baby calves nap contentedly in the afternoon sun on a Mason County farm pasture.

I took my daughter, Kasey Mae, along with me shooting tonight. She enjoyed playing in the water while I went to work. It was an amazing night with just the two of us!

Underway and making way, slow but sure, a turtle plodded along the beach near the Ludington State Park Beach House. The turtle’s slow pace gave me time to create an artistic composition that emphasized the beauty of its tracks. The highlights and shadows resulting from the bright, low-in-the-sky evening light raking across the beach made the tracks more distinct and more beautiful. This is one of my son Brad’s favorite images of mine. Brad was ecstatic when he saw the Fuji Velvia slide of this image after I dug it out of the slide storage box it had been living in for years.

Like a picture out of its past, Big Point Sable Lighthouse keepers' quarters glow with lights, as they did when operated by the Coast Guard until the 1970s. Volunteers now occupy the dwelling, conducting tours and working on maintenance and restoration. Another time exposure of Big Sable Light at night was part of the first photo story I ever shot, for a photography class in college in 1969.

Water and foam swirl together on the Sable River to form a beautiful sea horse.

While taking back roads up to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore tonight, we drove by this old McCormick-Deering tractor. I had my dad turn the Suburban around so I could hop out and make this photograph. Both the tractor and the massive old maple tree are timeless beauties. I wonder which one is older? F10 at 1/125, ISO 400, 18-50mm lens at 18mm

I tend to prefer sharp light and haze-free skies at sunset. But I have learned that the softness and toned-down colors of a hazy sky sunset sometimes look and feel better.

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!

I will forever be grateful that I was born and raised in Ludington and that I can live, work, and play as an adult in my beautiful hometown. Listening to the sound of Lake Michigan waves slowly brushing the sand along the shoreline at the Ludington State Park tonight, I was also grateful that my kids are now getting to experience the magic of Ludington as their hometown.

As another photo hunting day dawned, I was searching along the shores of Hamlin Lake for a winter picture when I spotted a patch of open water. Some Canada geese and mute swans had already found one of the only unfrozen spots on the huge lake.

 Although, over the last few years I’ve made many images that I’m extremely proud of, one photo that I still had not captured was a great image of the Ludington North Breakwater Light. I’ve made images of the lighthouse, just none that I was in love with. I had the chance to stay in town to shoot the sunset on May 21st, and I was crossing my fingers that the rain would stop, and the clouds would break just enough for the sun to shine through. It could have gone either way, but I was ready and waiting. I chose a telephoto lens, so that I could focus on just the lighthouse and the setting sun. Thankfully for me, the sunset turned out to be gorgeous! I could see others taking a nightly run to the lighthouse, or taking in the sunset with family or friends. It was just me, my camera, and the setting sun enjoying that special night on the south side of the beach, listening to Lake Michigan tell her summer secrets.