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Since the 1930s, the Beach House at Ludington State Park has served many functions. My favorite memories of the Beach House are the massive family reunions my mom's family would have there when I was young. While the adults were busy catching up on the past year's events, we kids were busy exploring the mysterious castle on the beach.

When the quality of light is this extraordinary at Big Sable Point Lighthouse, I have come to realize how breathtaking and beautiful everything looks compared to more ordinary days. I still like the more ordinary days, but I crave mornings like this one!

One of my favorite places to take a "Sunday Drive" any day of the week in autumn is the wooded area of the 3,450-acre Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness between Ludington and Manistee. Today I find the seasonal transition spectacular.

PM River and Conrad Road

Tuesdays With Todd and Brad Reed

My high school math teacher, Mr. Bud, told his students many funny stories of his days working as a park ranger at the Ludington State Park. Mr. Bud also taught us to KISS: Keep It Simple, Silly! I often try to apply KISS to my photographic compositions. Simple compositions can become great art.

Charlevoix Magic

The mighty small but mighty powerful tugboat Wyoming is dwarfed by the stern of the Great Lakes ship Calumet as the tugboat does its part to control the stern of the large ore carrier. F4.5 at 1/3200, ISO 800, 300mm lens at 300mm

Ludington Lighthouse During Workshop

During an early morning workshop shoot, my dad and I took 15 students to Little Sable Point Lighthouse. We love being at the lighthouse as the sun rises above the huge wooded sand dunes to the east. The dunes keep the sun from hitting the lighthouse directly for almost thirty minutes after sunrise. Once the sunlight finally arrives, it can be very dramatic. As Galen Rowell would preach, shoot with your camera from the shadows into the light.

The tugboat Wyoming is all business. From its reinforced iron hull to its giant cleats and array of towing lights, it is obvious this little ship is built to work. As a longtime Great Lakes sailor, I love how "squared away" the Great Lakes Towing Company vessel looks. F4 at 1/2000, ISO 800, 300mm lens at 300mm

Lighthouses always attract my attention but today I am more attracted to these birch trees on the Manistee waterfront. Brad and I often like to make lighthouses the secondary subject of our Michigan lighthouse photographs. F8 at 1/200, ISO 100, 80-200mm lens at 112mm

Lake Michigan waves colored with sunset afterglow wash ashore near the Second Curve at Ludington State Park, creating ever-changing watercolor artwork. Just as quickly as one of these "wave paintings" appears, it starts to disappear as the wave energy is spent and gravity carries the water back lake-ward. Seeing and capturing these interesting but fleeting patterns of light and shadow is challenging and a good exercise in seeing. Nature does the painting; the photographer's role is to watch, recognize a picture and shoot before the "painting" erases itself.

Manistee harbor has been a busy shipping, fishing and industrial port since the mid-1800s. This morning a lone recreational fishing boat trolls past the handsomely restored carferry SS City of Milwaukee on Manistee Lake. F22 at 1/10, ISO 400, 80-200mm lens at 100mm

Ludington Lighthouse During Workshop

The first two weeks of October are a glorious time of year along the Lake Michigan shoreline. For several decades, I have told my photography students more often than they want to hear, “Clouds are your friends.” Early October is a great time to experience sunshine, fresh breeze and crisp, clear air painted with billowy clouds. When these conditions exist, the dune grasses and beaches appear most alive, and so do I! I visualized this image months before making it about 2001 when we lived near Lake Michigan at Crosswinds south of Ludington. My beloved Labrador retriever Beamer and I passed this spot during our daily hikes through the dunes to and from the beach. For several months, this particular stand of dune grass stood out to me from hundreds of others. I wouldn’t let Beamer go near it because I knew it had the makings of a great image; I imagined what the scene would look like in the sharp “magic light” of October. One early October morning, as Beamer and I were passing by this special spot, there it was! Mother Nature had brought all the ingredients together. All I had to do was turn around and take Beamer back home, grab my Nikon F100 and tripod and finish making the photograph. Since I had the image designed in my mind for months, all that was left to do now was fine-tune it artistically and nail it technically. That meant applying years of experience to make certain I made a perfect exposure on the Fuji Velvia transparency film I was using at the time. Almost two decades later, this image remains one of my favorite lakeshore images because it is so experiential for me and others. Brad and I say good photography is all about feeling. I can touch, taste and smell this image. I think a lot of other people feel the same way. The image puts me there; it puts others there.