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Northern Reflections - Panoramic

Wind contorts my face, waves roar and crash just short of the feet of my tripod, sun gleams and dances across the water, clouds paint the sky. I am in my glory. This is as good as it gets for a Lake Michigan photographer. These are the days I dream about and rarely experience. This mid-September day of 2001 on the Ludington waterfront was one of the best moments of my life. My camera recorded it so I and others can experience it again and again.

Calm water, geese, fog, and a colorful sunrise are common ingredients in outdoor photography. When you combine all four of them in one photograph, you have a recipe for success.

Southwester waves rush at the Ludington South Breakwall while others rebound off them, creating confused seas--a condition sailors like to avoid when the waves get this big. Changing colors faster than a chameleon, this sea and sky would soon become blood red.

The brilliantly colored rocks along the Lake Michigan shoreline at Point Betsie Lighthouse make the perfect foreground for our photographs. Today, with several workshop students, we found a storm pool just south of the lighthouse. I lay on my stomach and put my tripod very low to capture the reflection of Point Betsie Lighthouse in the storm pool. The light rain we had a few minutes earlier made all the rocks wet, which in turn made them more colorful.

I love seeing the Michigan countryside flowers. Sweet pea along a farm fence line looked as pretty to me as any flower arrangement I can imagine. I am glad that I took a less-traveled road on this July 2017 day while meandering between Whitehall and Hart.

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.

The United States Coast Guard motto of Semper Paratus means Always Ready. My dad and I have our trucks packed full of all kinds of clothing, photography gear, and safety equipment, including several hundred feet of high quality rope. Today we put at least 250 feet of that rope to good use in order to make this photograph on Grand Traverse Bay. With my cold-water survival suit on and my underwater camera around my neck, I made my way out to this moored sailboat. My dad was back on shore and tending the other end of the rope. I couldn't have done it without his help.

Long since abandoned, the medieval looking Waugoshance Light has endured since 1851, with the help of its iron plates. Its birdcage lantern is a rarity among Michigan's surviving lighthouses. F8 at 1/800, ISO 800, 80-200mm lens at 165mm

The rolling hills and seemingly endless rows of fences of the meticulously maintained Waltons horse ranch south of Traverse City, Michigan has always caught my eye. A gorgeous horse and spectacular sky make the view picture perfect on this August Tuesday of "Tuesdays with Todd and Brad Reed: A Michigan Tribute." F5.6 at 1/1250, ISO 100, 80-200mm lens at 80mm

Calm Night In Pentwater

Dreamscape

Calm Night In Pentwater - panoramic

In the workshops my dad and I lead, we tell our students not to be afraid of turning their cameras vertically. Some of our favorite photographs we have ever made are vertical images. On this day I took a horizontal photograph and a vertical photograph about 10 seconds apart. The composition in the vertical photograph was the definite winner.

Mid-to-late May is a magical time to step inside northern Michigan forests. The leaves on the hardwood trees have formed but are most likely not yet full-size. The forest is splendid, especially because the not yet fully-grown leaves leave more space for sunlight to reach the forest floor. May 22, 2020 was a picture-perfect day for my wife, Debbie, and me to hike the morning away on the Mt. Baldy Trail at one of the Mott conservancy trails along M-22 north of Arcadia. We observed many scattered trillium and other wild plants the first half-hour but when, after a couple of miles of hiking, we came upon this hillside covered with trilliums, I felt like I had entered a trillium dreamland. It was time for me to stop and try to find a picture-perfect spot to plant my tripod and make an image worthy of what I was seeing and feeling. My wife knows me. She knew this was going to take time. When I am blessed to find a scene like this, I know better than to rush; I want to make the best art I can, art that moves me and hopefully others. Debbie likes to keep moving so, as she often does, she hiked on, leaving me to catch her when I knew I was finished, knew I had made an image I felt good about. Thank you, Debbie, for putting up for years with my stop-and-go approach to hiking; I know it is not easy sometimes. We had already hiked several hundred miles together in 2020 before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In all that time, I never made a photograph that moved me like this one. Our reward that day was curbside-pickup takeout sandwiches and beer from Stormcloud Brewing Company in Frankfort, savored with a tailgate picnic at Frankfort beach.

"Heaven On Lincoln” by Todd Reed When the aurora borealis first appeared in the Ludington area Monday night, I quickly decided to make my first stop Lincoln Lake. I am so happy I did. The Northern lights were already visible when I arrived at Cartier Park. Shortly after I got my camera and tripod set up, the lights became more colorful. I made a quick test shot to see if my exposure was on target. It was. By then the colorful lights were dancing and reflecting on the water. I was in Lincoln Lake heaven! Nikon D850. F5.6 at 152 seconds, 800 ISO. 24-70mm lens at 24mm. On a tripod without a flash. 11:36pm on September 18, 2023.

Manistee Eminance