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Keeping On

Independence Day

Falling

A lone tree in a farm field stands out in any season, but especially during the heart of winter. Fields with lone trees are common throughout the Point to Point area. Besides adding beauty, many of them have provided shade for up to a century or more of both farmers and farm animals.

This view from high atop Big Point Sable Lighthouse shows the layers of dunes and forest between Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake and reveals the vastness and beauty of the remote northern area of Ludington State Park. Brad and I climbed to the top of the lighthouse on an early November morning and sat in the dark, anxiously awaiting sunrise. The light and atmosphere that appeared was well worth the chilly wait.

Chuck Wagon pizza is one of the main icons of Ludington. I told owner Rick Chapman we couldn't do a 365 Project without including a photograph of Chuck Wagon. Zach Gipe, one of my previous students when I was an elementary school teacher, was eager to throw some dough for my photograph. F2.8 at 1/60, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 23 mm

The lookout on M22 between Elberta and Arcadia is one of our favorite spots to stop and look for photographs of Lake Michigan. On this particularly windy day, I hiked to the top of the tall flight of stairs to photograph from the stable platform at the top. It was worth the hike.

This morning I photographed McLaren Lake near Hesperia at sunrise. I loved seeing the sunlight shining through the top of the trees and mixing with the fog.

After careful risk assessment, my son Brad has worked his way to the top of one of the tallest mounds of ice piled high in the Straits of Mackinac. He is determined to make a close-up image of one of the nature-made ice sculptures with the Mackinac Bridge as the backdrop. Knowing from my many years of ice rescue training in the Coast Guard that "no ice is safe ice," I am standing by with an assortment of ice rescue gear to assist if necessary.

Workshop at Ludington State Park

Hoffmaster Shores

365 Week 07

Let the Sunlight In

The moon’s “cheese” was not only highly visible but took on a beautiful golden red hue during the lunar eclipse on September 27, 2015. At this point, the moon was almost totally eclipsed. I ended up liking this image better than my total eclipse shot because I felt that the slight highlight of the uneclipsed edge made the photograph more exciting and more three-dimensional looking.

Finding the Angles

Sometimes the simplicity and contrast that winter brings to a particular scene turns it into a picture. That was how I felt when I saw this picture on the Lincoln River east of Jebavy Drive. I travel past this scene almost daily, but this was the first time I visualized it as a good picture. Timing is everything!

Anyone lucky enough to be standing on the storm-flooded Lake Michigan beach near the Second Curve on October 18, 2007, at 6:49:21 p.m., would have been overwhelmed by the scene before his or her eyes. This was an incredible moment in time, obviously a beautiful, powerful view. But there was something more: an unreal, out-of-this world quality, a feeling that comes to me only when I witness some of the most rare natural phenomenons. A meteotsunami (meteorological tsunami) had flooded the beach.

Franz Lanting, one of the greatest wildlife photographers in the world, talks in his amazing photography book Eye to Eye about getting "eye to eye" with animals. That's what I am trying to accomplish while photographing this buffalo in its pasture along South Stiles Road between Ludington and Scottville. F6.3 at 1/125, ISO 400, 80-200 mm lens at 200 mm

The Lake Michigan shoreline can change in a blink of an eye. Tonight, at the Lake Michigan Campground in the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area between Manistee and Ludington, I was amazed at how quickly the sand on the left of this image was being undercut and caving in. The small outlet was growing in width before my eyes.

Photos do lie! This photo looks like it was a warm night on the Ludington City Beach. In reality, a storm was blowing in and the wind was bitter cold. It was a great night of shooting the sunset with friends.