Todd Reed: 50 Years Seeing Michigan Through a Lens

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 hand-crafted wooden dinghy drifted lazily upon the still waters of Pentwater Lake on a summer evening. Its tending line kept the little craft from drifting too far away from a classic wooden sailboat.

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.

The tugboat John Henry circles the Badger to help the 410-foot carferry battle its way out of Ludington harbor against wind-driven ice packed tight from surface to lake bottom. This dramatic scene unfolded in front of my camera during the winter of 1989 as the big ship was battling the ice to ferry another load of railroad cars from Ludington to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I climbed a high stone pile near the edge of icy Ludington harbor to get a better view. It was freezing cold, but I didn’t notice. As a photojournalist and artist, I lived for the opportunity to make images that I considered good news shots and good art. I was more than willing to pay a price and wait for a peak moment to capture. I still consider this one of the best maritime images I have ever made.

While Brad and I were photographing Michigan every Wednesday of 2014 for our book, Todd and Brad Reed’s Michigan: Wednesdays in the Mitten, I traveled to Mackinaw City on Tuesday, February 11, to scout out and be ready to shoot book images early the next morning. I wished this image I made that Tuesday evening in the Straits of Mackinac as the moon was rising would have appeared in front of my camera Wednesday so it could have been included in the Wednesdays book. It took seven years, but my Straits creation finally made its way into a book.

The original Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw busts a path into Ludington harbor for the carferry City of Midland on February 18, 1977, after the Midland became mired in ice just outside the harbor entrance during one of the coldest winters in decades. I scrambled over huge ice mounds in making my way all the way out the breakwater to the Ludington lighthouse to have a close-up vantage from which to make this image. The Mackinaw helped keep Great Lakes shipping lanes open for 62 years before being decommissioned in 2006 when the replacement Mackinaw went into service.

In our 20-20 Vision course, my son Brad and I teach our photography students 20 concepts we use in building strong images. We like to think of these concepts as 20 distinctly different arrows in our photography quiver that we can draw from. This is the best image I have ever made of Little Sable Point Lighthouse, not only because I used a lot of image-building arrows, but because each of them was right on target maximizing the visual impact of the photograph. The dramatic clouds in the mid-October sky enabled me to use one of my favorite arrows: “Clouds are your friends.” Not only were there great clouds, but at the moment of exposure, the clouds were wonderfully positioned in relationship to the lighthouse. This was the fifth consecutive morning I had made the 60-mile round trip to Little Sable Point. I determined the ideal spot to place my tripod on the first day. My goal was to create a three-layer “Grand Scenic” layer cake, marrying foreground, middle-ground and background elements together in a beautiful union. A triangular mound of dune grass provided the perfect foreground and base in which to place my camera. This foreground layer was the most essential layer to make viewers of my finished photograph feel as though they were actually standing there with me. Brad and I strive to make photographs that transcend from pictures to experiences. We want viewers to step right into the scene. I designed and built a strong image that first morning. All the compositional elements were in place. All that was needed now was God’s “magic light” to finish the image. Four mornings in a row I watched and waited. On the fifth morning the light was sharp, the westerly wind was building up some great waves into repetitive patterns, and the clouds looked especially stunning and powerful. After 100 cold minutes, a bright beam of light appeared headed my way like a giant search light. As the light hit the lighthouse, I began shooting. A few seconds later the light also lit the dune grass in front of my camera and tripod. For about five seconds in five days, one of the most glorious shoreline scenes I have ever witnessed lay before me. Then the magic light moved on, and the scene became so much less moving. I and other photographers have made subsequent photographs from almost exactly the same spot. I don’t think Mother Nature will ever duplicate this day. I thank God I realized the need to persevere and be there at this amazing moment.

Stopped temporarily in its track by ice pushed by westerly winds across Lake Michigan into Ludington Harbor, the carferry Badger was framed by an ice-coated railing along the Ludington harbor channel. This scene and the “Red Tug” scene unfolded during the 1980s when the sturdy ship still carried railroad cars and operated year-around. This image still stands as my favorite carferry photograph from among the thousands I have taken.

When God creates a scene this extraordinary, you pray to God you will be there! Lake Michigan waves flooded the Ludington State Park beach on October 18, 2007, during one of the most apparent meteotsunamis Brad and I have experienced in our photographic lives. These Great Lakes weather-driven meteorological tsunamis happen many times a year. They quickly raise the water level and flood the shoreline. Most of these meteotsunamis have little impact. We have left camera bags high and dry, only to find them sitting in a lake that wasn’t there 15 minutes earlier. We knew from experience to respect the water and realize we and our camera equipment could get swept away if we did not maintain situational awareness. This day, I had chased the storm clouds to Ludington State Park after spotting them while driving to the Ludington beach. Moments after I arrived, I heard noise behind me and turned to see Brad running down to the shore wearing soccer shorts, shoes and T-shirt. It was hilarious to see someone running toward a fall Great Lakes storm dressed in that outfit. But, like me, he knew time was of the essence when he interrupted his participation in a soccer game to chase a storm. People often think we wait for hours to get our shots. But, especially in the case of fast-moving storms, we are often chasing the storm like mad dogs. Just as Brad arrived, the sun popped out of a hole in the clouds and flooded the beach with light. Before us was one of the rarest magical Lake Michigan views of our lives. I will never forget the experience of being there in sun and wind and water. Less than five minutes later, I would witness and capture with my digital camera an equally memorable out-of-this-world moment. Bottom line for photographers, when it looks this great, focus with all your being on your photography until the magic disappears.

I felt like I was on an ice sculpture-lined path as I made this image of Point Betsie Lighthouse on January 5, 2017. I am never visually disappointed visiting Point Betsie; I always find photographic opportunities there. This was one of those “Bad Is Good” days for outdoor photography. Wind, Lake Michigan waves and near-zero temperatures had created this icy visual path to one of my favorite lighthouses. I was far too exhilarated by this frozen view to think about being cold as I alone appreciated and studied nature’s artwork and worked to make it the star of my picture show.

This is, as I look back at my first 50 years as a photographer, the best photograph I have ever made. That lightning bolt still explodes in my mind’s eye nearly a quarter-century after it lit up the night on September 19, 1997. At least once more in my lifetime I would like the privilege of photographing a moment as power-packed as this one. I was as charged as the air about me as an enormous storm cloud fired lightning bolts faster than a giant Gatling gun and swept across Lake Michigan toward my vantage point on the Ludington shoreline. I had a crow’s nest view looking west toward Lake Michigan from my Officer of the Day berthing room on the second deck of Coast Guard Station Ludington. An hour earlier, I had been readying to get my boat crew underway for nighttime training aboard Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat 44345 when I spotted what at first glance looked like miniature lightning bolts barely visible dancing across the entire western horizon. We were seeing a thunderstorm hitting Wisconsin and heading our way. We secured the boat for heavy weather with extra lines and secured the station. With our work day done, I retreated to my room and set up my 300-millimeter lens on my tripod, awaiting the advancing tempest. I maintained my visualized composition, never changing the narrow aim of the Nikon N90 camera at the Ludington lighthouse. I had never seen so many lightning bolts in the sky at once. I decided that the odds of capturing one large bolt lighting up the Ludington lighthouse could not be better than now. As the stormfront raced across Lake Michigan at 45 knots, I began taking 30-second time exposures when it was still 30 miles away. The closer the storm came to the Ludington shoreline, the louder, larger and brighter the lightning became. Many bolts were going off during every time exposure shot, but often north or south of the narrow angle of view of my large telephoto lens. I began doubting my decision not to use a wider angle. The super cell of the thunderstorm was less than a half-mile away now. The lightning was revealing a massive thunderhead cloud steamrolling end-over-end right at me. Boom! I jumped for the first time from the concussion. The light was blinding. My camera was recording it. But what did the camera see? And even if there was a big bolt recorded on the Fuji Velvia slide film, was it going to be in a good position relative to the lighthouse? Only time would tell—a lot of time. There was no instant feedback with film. I would have to wait until I was off duty to send the film in and then wait several days more for it to come back. I remember like it was yesterday pulling slide after slide out of the plastic storage box they came back in from the processor and looking at them one by one on my light table with an eight-power loupe. The first slides I reviewed, which were the first shots taken when the storm was further away, quickly turned my excitement into disappointment. The images were not living up to the experience. But the further I dug into the box, the bigger the bolts were, and the more they lit up and colored the sky. Finally, upon pulling out the next to last slide in the box, I saw the image I had visualized making, except far better than I could have ever imagined making of my own accord. I believe God was my guide in capturing this Heaven-sent moment. I named the image “God’s Light.” Post note: Without my knowledge, my wife, Debbie, entered the original “God’s Light” 35-millimeter slide in the 1998 Nikon International Contest. It won third place.

When God creates a scene this extraordinary, you pray to God you will be there! Lake Michigan waves flooded the Ludington State Park beach on October 18, 2007, during one of the most apparent meteotsunamis Brad and I have experienced in our photographic lives. These Great Lakes weather-driven meteorological tsunamis happen many times a year. They quickly raise the water level and flood the shoreline. Most of these meteotsunamis have little impact. We have left camera bags high and dry, only to find them sitting in a lake that wasn’t there 15 minutes earlier. We knew from experience to respect the water and realize we and our camera equipment could get swept away if we did not maintain situational awareness. This day, I had chased the storm clouds to Ludington State Park after spotting them while driving to the Ludington beach. Moments after I arrived, I heard noise behind me and turned to see Brad running down to the shore wearing soccer shorts, shoes and T-shirt. It was hilarious to see someone running toward a fall Great Lakes storm dressed in that outfit. But, like me, he knew time was of the essence when he interrupted his participation in a soccer game to chase a storm. People often think we wait for hours to get our shots. But, especially in the case of fast-moving storms, we are often chasing the storm like mad dogs. Just as Brad arrived, the sun popped out of a hole in the clouds and flooded the beach with light. Before us was one of the rarest magical Lake Michigan views of our lives. I will never forget the experience of being there in sun and wind and water. Less than five minutes later, I would witness and capture with my digital camera an equally memorable out-of-this-world moment. Bottom line for photographers, when it looks this great, focus with all your being on your photography until the magic disappears.

I had finished making an afterglow image at the Ludington beach that I was very happy with, but before heading home this November 2, 2020, evening I decided I should give the sky another look from a different perspective. Fifteen minutes later, when the afterglow seemed long gone, my nephew Ryan Reed and I could still see distinct pink color in the dark night sky from the foot of Ludington Avenue. I made a test shot to determine exposure and was impressed by the color. This next tripod mounted shot, 25 seconds long, proved how well modern digital cameras see in the dark and how much color was still present.

The Great Lakes freighter Algorail appeared about to strike the Ludington North Breakwall during an autumn Northwester, but its veteran captain used the powerful north wind and waves on her stern to his advantage. Moments after I recorded this scene, the ship’s bow reached the pierheads, the wheelsman wheeled the ship hard to port, and she advanced ahead while her stern transferred swiftly to the south. The big ship was guided into the harbor as though she were on a curved roller coaster track. It was a masterful piece of sailing.

Sahara Sands

Too magical to be real, a white horse made an already beautiful Michigan fall color view truly magnificent. One never knows what wonder will appear when traveling the byways of West Michigan.

I visualized how the Charlevoix Lighthouse might look three hours and 150 miles before I got there. The fresh coat of ice on the Charlevoix pier from yesterday's north wind and waves looks even better than I envisioned. I am loving being right here, right now in Northern Michigan.

In our 20-20 Vision course, my son Brad and I teach our photography students 20 concepts we use in building strong images. We like to think of these concepts as 20 distinctly different arrows in our photography quiver that we can draw from. This is the best image I have ever made of Little Sable Point Lighthouse, not only because I used a lot of image-building arrows, but because each of them was right on target maximizing the visual impact of the photograph. The dramatic clouds in the mid-October sky enabled me to use one of my favorite arrows: “Clouds are your friends.” Not only were there great clouds, but at the moment of exposure, the clouds were wonderfully positioned in relationship to the lighthouse. This was the fifth consecutive morning I had made the 60-mile round trip to Little Sable Point. I determined the ideal spot to place my tripod on the first day. My goal was to create a three-layer “Grand Scenic” layer cake, marrying foreground, middle-ground and background elements together in a beautiful union. A triangular mound of dune grass provided the perfect foreground and base in which to place my camera. This foreground layer was the most essential layer to make viewers of my finished photograph feel as though they were actually standing there with me. Brad and I strive to make photographs that transcend from pictures to experiences. We want viewers to step right into the scene. I designed and built a strong image that first morning. All the compositional elements were in place. All that was needed now was God’s “magic light” to finish the image. Four mornings in a row I watched and waited. On the fifth morning the light was sharp, the westerly wind was building up some great waves into repetitive patterns, and the clouds looked especially stunning and powerful. After 100 cold minutes, a bright beam of light appeared headed my way like a giant search light. As the light hit the lighthouse, I began shooting. A few seconds later the light also lit the dune grass in front of my camera and tripod. For about five seconds in five days, one of the most glorious shoreline scenes I have ever witnessed lay before me. Then the magic light moved on, and the scene became so much less moving. I and other photographers have made subsequent photographs from almost exactly the same spot. I don’t think Mother Nature will ever duplicate this day. I thank God I realized the need to persevere and be there at this amazing moment.

A Coast Guard self-righting motor lifeboat reached sheltered water inside the Grand Haven pierheads after “heavy weather” training operations on Lake Michigan in the large waves generated by Superstorm Sandy. The 47-foot vessel is designed to operate in seas up to 30 feet and winds up to 50 knots.