Summer
Summer in Fish Town
Fish Town in Leland showcases Michigan's Great Lakes commercial fishing heritage while also featuring shopping, dining, and boat cruises. Leland is one of dozens of picturesque Great Lakes small port villages, towns, and cities.
Gale Force
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.
Saving Grace
In the 1980s, high Lake Michigan water levels threatened to undermine Big Point Sable Lighthouse. The Coast Guard erected a planned replacement tower to be ready for the day the light toppled into Lake Michigan. Local lighthouse lovers and construction companies teamed up to repair the steel wall that once protected the light, adding further fortification against the waves. The reinforcement worked; the Coast Guard removed the backup light. Lake Michigan receded, allowing the waves to deposit sand around part of the sea wall. Knowing the potential fate at this light makes me appreciate its presence even more.
Brad Reed's Day 199 of 365
This is the best sunset I have ever seen while photographing the Manistee Lighthouse. I tried to time it so that the people walking down the pier were in a good location for this composition. I used the natural framing of the pier and placed the walkers in one of the archways. In our photography workshops, we call this concept micro composing.
F9.0 at 1/125, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 35 mm
Blue Laker
The freighter Canadian Transfer, her navigation light showing she is underway, steams slowly, carefully toward Ludington harbor on a summer night. The traditional style Great Lakes freighter was bringing a load of stone to the Laman Aspalt docks.
Bringing Me Home
I walked out the Ludington North Breakwater to photograph the northern lights in the middle of the night. The lights we barely visible, but the Milky Way was incredible. You could also see the lights of Wisconsin. It was a beautifully calm night on Lake Michigan.
Heavenly Light
Shining brighter than a spotlight at a rock concert, beams of light I like to call "God beams" spotlight the Ludington lighthouse. I prefer nature's light shows to any manmade ones.
Manistee Storm
Photographing lightning always gives me a jolt of adrenaline. This storm that rolled in from Lake Michigan hit Manistee with a punch. I was excited that I was able to capture a small bolt of lightning with only a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second.
F22 at 1/5, ISO 100, 18-50mm lens at 27mm
Top of Little Sable
The shoreline at Little Sable Point extends westward toward Wisconsin farther than any spot of land in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. I feel on top of the world looking southwest over Lake Michigan from the tower observation deck over 100 feet above the shore atop Little Sable Point Lighthouse.
Skyline View of Badger - Panoramic
Those who climb their way to the top of the Skyline Trail are rewarded with a birds-eye view of the southern portion of the park. If they time their hike to the schedule of the carferry S.S. Badger, and look through a good pair of binoculars or a large telephoto camera lens, they might also enjoy one of the best views they have ever seen of the big ship heading out of Ludington harbor.
On The Hook
For years, I have enjoyed observing sailboats swinging from their mooring buoys with the wind in the harbors along the Lake Michigan shoreline. This summer night in Ludington harbor I watched the water and sky around a sailboat on the hook on Pere Marquette Lake transform from electric orange at sunset to shocking pink minutes later.