Ludington Point to Point

Clouds are your friends. I preach this to my photography students at West Shore Community College more than they want to hear it. Clouds can add great ingredients to outdoor photographs. Sometimes, like on this fall evening, they make powerful subjects by themselves. At times clouds appear heaven sent. This one, over Lake Michigan, looked like an angel to my wife and me. We named it "Robbie's Cloud" in memory of an angel in our lives.

A highlight of a summer day at the Lake Michigan shoreline is when the sun reflects on waves in the late afternoon. It is a golden hour for looking lakeward. One of those lazy days, a shallow sandbar created a wading pool where wave currents and gulls played upon the surface near Ludington State Park Beach House.

Like seeing a wondrous mirage in a desert, it was hard to distinguish reality from illusion as I looked across Silver Lake shortly after sunrise on an October morning.

One day a sand dune can appear smooth as glass; the next day the wind can create rows of sand. Nothing remains constant with sand dunes. Only the camera freezes the time.

Dune grass, that a week earlier blended in with a sand dune, stood out against the snow that painted the dune along the Lake Michigan shoreline near the Ludington State Park Beach House.

Like a 747 dwarfing the smaller planes at an airport, a mute swan makes a big impact as it touches down near smaller waterfowl on the Sauble River at Ludington State Park.

Some trees look almost human as they strike individual poses against the landscape. I was photo hunting in Victory Township, northeast of Ludington, when this tree and the atmosphere surrounding it caught my eye.

The canopy that these maple trees drape over the roadway is one of the many reasons Conrad Road, between Ludington and Scottville, is one of my favorite stretches to drive. Photo hunting along area rural roads has been a favorite endeavor for decades. I have discovered countless unforgettable scenes and many memorable friendly people in my travels.

My son, Brad and I climbed for half an hour to arrive at this dune vantage point on Hamlin Lake. Our family made several summer trips to the dunes and was always rewarded with good pictures and great experiences.

I love taking giant scale photos that show vast scenes, but I have also disciplined myself more to see details, to move closer, then (as I tell my photography students) twice as close again. This shows less of a scene, but reveals more detail, allowing me to see and show what is often overlooked. One winter morning, going to a grand vista at Epworth Heights to view Lake Michigan, the window of an old garage caught my eye. It is an unanticipated detail that often makes the best picture.

Give me a windy day at the beach anytime, especially an autumn day when the light is sharp. On this afternoon, I wanted to capture the feeling of a windy day along the Lake Michigan shoreline. I set up the tripod and used a slow shutter speed to record the movement of the dune.

As vivid as it is harmful to the other growth along the banks of the Pere Marquette River, loosestrife stands out shortly after sunrise in the flats south of Ludington.

The sun sets over the sand dunes at Hamlin Lake in a view southwestward from the Narrows that connect the Upper and Lower sections of the lake. A duck hunting blind on this private property is one of my favorite spots to hunt for Hamlin Lake pictures. Sitting there, I wonder what amazing views hunters must have enjoyed from this spot over lifetimes of hunting. I am grateful for permission to hunt there with my camera.

Many times I passed this old house on the road from Shelby to Silver Lake but one autumn afternoon the setting screamed out at me to stop. Sumac blared out from the yard like a police car's siren. I love road hunting with my camera. I have driven tens of thousands of miles, down highways and byways, looking for new pictures or fresh views of pictures previously taken. Some days I never find a good picture. On other days they just seem to keep appearing. This was one of those days.

From shore, the Ludington lighthouse resembled a giant ice sculpture after an early winter gale subsided. I knew I needed to get close to get the strongest photograph. The treacherously slippery hike to the lighthouse left me questioning whether I should have attempted it. The view in front of my camera gave me my answer. As darkness was closing in, I was slipping and sliding my way back to shore, questioning my sanity but feeling good that I had mad this picture envisioned from shore.

On one of the high spots of Victory Township, northeast of Ludington, this windmill stands out against the sky. It is one of the spots I gravitate toward when the sky looks as if it will turn brilliant.

I love when the sky looks more ominous than a scene out of my favorite Peanuts cartoon strip in which Snoopy, at his typewriter on top of his doghouse, begins: "It was a dark and stormy night

As a photojournalist for the Ludington Daily News, I took hundreds of photographs of special events at White Pine Village. The photographs helped tell the story of important historic preservation activities by Mason County Historical Society. One evening, long after my career as a news photographer, I was passing by the closed village. Nature produced a special event, rivaling all factitious events I had enjoyed documenting over the years. It looked as if lightning was striking White Pine Chapel. In reality, reflected sunlight was shining through a break in the clouds. My wife and I were the great illusion's lone spectators.

The base of the Ludington North Breakwater Lighthouse juts seaward like the bow of a ship as the carferry Badger returns to Ludington harbor on a late summer evening.

I have watched this solitary soldier appear to stand guard over the graves of veterans in Lakeview Cemetery, north of Ludington, for years. I find it fascinating to see the scenes change around the stone soldier as the seasons come and go.