Winter finally came to Michigan in a big way. This past weekend in Grand Rapids, we received about 17 inches of snow. Prior to that, the snowfall had been minimal. That was the case in the northern lower peninsula, as well. Frankfort, Michigan, in Benzie County, had just 2.5 inches of new snow in December, 21 fewer inches than normal. So far in January, Frankfort has received 21.8 inches.
With this blast on winter, I had to drive north to check it out and do some photography. On Wednesday, I visited the Point Betsie Lighthouse, just north of Frankfort, perhaps one of the most photographed lighthouses in Michigan. I arrived about 8:45 a.m. and had the place to myself. No wonder. The wind was gusting to 30 mph and the windchill was about ten below zero. I was able to stand outside for about 10 minutes before my fingers were so cold, it was hard to operate the camera. I retreated to my car, put on some heavier gloves, put foot warmers in my boots and headed up to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where I photographed in woodlands, where I was protected by the wind. My 10 minutes in the deep freeze were productive, however. Here are the keepers among the photos I took.
At the end of each year I look back at the images I have taken and select several to highlight in a year-end post. This year I have selected 15 photos to share and discuss. Whether these images are my “best” or not, I am not sure. But, they are all images that gave me a sense of achievement in expressing my vision.
Winter Scenes
I will start with four images I took in the winter. Winter is my favorite time to do photography. I love being outside in the winter. I find the cold and the snow to be invigorating. Snow can be a landscape photographer’s friend helping to reduce the chaos that so often typifies a scene in nature, especially in a woodland. I have photographed this sumac several times over the years, but found it difficult to get it to stand out from the trees behind it. I made this photograph in a snow storm, which helped to reduce the chaos in the scene, creating separation between the twists and turns of the sumac and the forest in the background.
I first came across this lone tree in a farmer’s field in the fall of 2021. I described it then as one of my “U-Turn” photos – a scene that caught my eye as I was driving by and caused me to do a u-turn. It happened again this past winter. I drove by this tree while it was snowing and again did a 180 and pulled off by the side of the road. A lone tree is a frequent subject for landscape photographers. It can evoke a range of emotions, such as isolation, tenacity, or independence. Having captured a photo in the fall and winter, I will have to return to this spot in the spring and summer to document it in all four seasons.
Walking along Shalda Creek where it enters Good Harbor Bay in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, I saw these stones frozen in ice. As I photographed them, a haiku came to mind:
Stones encased in ice
Imprisoned by winter’s cold
The beach in February
A good photograph has something in common with a haiku. A haiku expresses its meaning in three spare lines – no wasted words or syllables. In a photograph, everything has to contribute – no extraneous things to distract from the subject.
On my frequent drives to the Leelanau Peninsula, I pass the Weldon Township Cemetery in a clearing cut from the forest. I have stopped several times to try and capture the emotion of the scene without success. But, the winter’s snow helped to emphasize the simplicity of this hallowed place and to convey a sense of repose and honor.
My Swan Vigil
In March, I went for a walk along Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids, Michigan, and came across a swan sitting on a nest. I continued to visit the nest for two and a half months, hoping to be able to document the hatching of the swan’s nine eggs. The eggs never hatched, but I was able to put together a blog piece on my vigil. Here is the link. The male swan (the cob) was very protective of the nest. In this first photograph, the swan is taking off to confront another pair of swans a couple hundred yards away – apparently too close for the cob.
In the area of the swans’ nest there were many nesting geese. The cob policed the area to let the geese know their place in the order of things. Photographing birds was a challenge for me. I take photos of landscapes with my camera on a tripod, often with a long exposure time. I have the luxury of time to frame a shot and try different apertures and focal lengths. But birds don’t wait for you. You have to react and hope that you snap the photo at the decisive moment. I learned to observe and anticipate.
Iceland
In September, my wife and I visited Iceland. We concentrated our journey in Reykjavík, on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, and along the southern coast. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful country. Berserkjahraun, seen below, is a vast lava field on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula that formed 4,000 years ago. The lava field is covered with moss and lichen and offers a stunning view with mountains in the background.
I had never photographed the northern lights before. I got the opportunity when we rented a cottage on the southern coast, near Kirkjubæjarklaustur. We watched for nearly four hours as the aurora filled the night sky. The naked eye saw only the greenish colors, which danced in the sky. But, a longer exposure – nine seconds or so – captured the magenta.
On the southeast coast of Iceland is Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon dotted with icebergs that break off a glacier and make their way to the sea. My eye was attracted to the layers of tones in this scene.
Iceland has over 10,000 waterfalls. Probably the four most visited falls are Öxarárfoss at Þingvellir, Gullfoss on the Golden Circle, and Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss along the south coast of the country. All have large parking areas to accommodate the tourists who flock to the sites. We ventured off the main highway to a less visited waterfall, Gluggafoss, also known as Merkjárfoss, where we had the site almost to ourselves (other than the one woman in a bright red coat who kept walking into my photo while talking on her cellphone). Gluggafoss falls in two stages and has a total height of 171 feet. The lower falls are captured in the photo below.
Black and White
I continue to try to develop my eye for processing photos in black and white. Gluggafoss rendered well as a black and white photo, with a broad range of tones.
Back home in Michigan, I look for scenes that I think will be effective in black and white. Processing in black and white reduces a scene to its essence. It relies on structure and form, light and shadow to carry the photograph’s meaning. The great Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt, who died in November, said of black and white photography, “Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.”
I am attracted to the roots of trees, so I was excited when I came upon these cedar trees along the shore of Lake Michigan. Waves had eroded the shore exposing the lateral roots and tap root that have supported the trees for tens of years. Another period of high water and waves will likely mean the end for these trees.
I was recently studying the work of Wynn Bullock and came across his solarizations. Solarization is a technique in analog photography perfected by Man Ray. When developing film in the dark room, Man Ray would briefly flick on the lights which would invert some of the tones in the finished photograph. In my digital darkroom, I attempted to emulate this process by adjusting the tone curve in Lightroom, lifting the deep blacks while maintaining the midtones and highlights. I found it difficult to emulate solarization effectively, but I did like the effect my method had on this image of the cedar roots.
A Gift
Sometimes an image is simply a gift. I parked in a parking lot in Glen Haven, Michigan, hoping to take some long exposure photographs of waves coming ashore in Sleeping Bear Bay. As my luck would have it, the bay was virtually still that day. When I walked back to my car, the sun had just crested a row of trees to the east lighting up these empty milkweed pods. Simple and beautiful. The experience brought to mind another quote by Elliott Erwitt: “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. . . I’ve found it has little to do with things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
Thank You
If you have gotten to this point, thank you. Over the course of the past year, I have become less and less interested in posting photos to social media sites like Instagram, where people breeze by the photos, swiping left or right, giving little time to each image. So I appreciate your giving me the gift of your time to look at and consider the photos in this post.
Here are links to my my year-end review of images in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
We are recently returned from a visit to Iceland. While there, we had typical Icelandic weather for September – clouds, wind and rain. But, on the two clear nights, we were able to see the Aurora Borealis in all its glory.
The first evening we saw them, we were staying in a cottage on a farm near the village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur on Iceland’s south coast. The show was awesome. To naked eye, we could only see the green, but with the long exposure setting (about 13 seconds), my camera picked up the gorgeous magenta in the sky. (I did not adjust the hue or saturation in these photos. The only adjustments were to settings that affect contrast.)
We also encountered the aurora in the city of Keflavík on our last night in Iceland. At 65 degrees latitude, the aurora had no difficulty piercing the city lights.
Thirty-five miles west of the Boston Common in the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts, is a cemetery established by the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers. The settlement in Harvard, which was the second Shaker community in the colonies, was established in 1769. At its peak in the 1850s, the community had 200 members. By 1890, that number declined to 40.
The first burial in the cemetery occurred in 1792. By the time the cemetery was closed, over 300 members of the Shaker community were buried there.
The Harvard Shaker community purchased the land for the cemetery for $13.12. The men in the community set about building a stone wall around the cemetery, which was completed in November, 1799.
The cemetery is commonly known today as the “Lollipop Graveyard,” because of the cast-iron grave markers. Initially, graves were marked with stone markers. In 1879, the Harvard Shakers replaced the stone markers with the cast-iron lollipop markers.
The lollipop markers were designed by the brothers in the Mount Lebanon Shaker community at New Lebanon, New York, and cost about $1.50 to produce. The Harvard cemetery was the only Shaker Community to convert entirely to the metal markers and is the only Shaker cemetery where the metal markers remain.
The Harvard Shaker Village Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Additional information about Harvard Shaker Community and its burial grounds can be found here:
Once a year on the Fourth of July, the alley between Calvin Avenue and Giddings Avenue in Grand Rapids, Michigan, comes to life as Hollyhock Lane, the end point of the Hollyhock Lane Parade. Begun in 1934, the parade is the oldest continuous Independence Day parade in Michigan. It is a neighborhood event begun “to Instill Patriotism” and “to Promote Neighborliness.” Although receiving support from the City of Grand Rapids and the Ottawa Hills Neighborhood Association, the parade is organized by volunteers who go door-to-door for contributions and work to continue the tradition.
The parade winds along three streets in the Ottawa Hills neighborhood. Neighbors bring out their lawn chairs and children wait to catch candy. A neighborhood band organizes itself every year to march in the parade and children volunteer to fill the coveted roles of the Spirit of 76 (the flag-bearer, drummer and fife player), Miss Liberty, and Uncle Sam. Several adults who have been Uncle Sam or Miss Liberty in the past return each year to watch the parade.
This not being an election year, the parade was without the scrum of politicians that shows up in even years. But among the participants in the parade were our Representative in Congress, Hillary Scholten, and the Majority Leader in the Michigan State Senate, Winnie Brinks. But both participated as members of the neighborhood, not as candidates for office. Also among the parade participants was the Grand Rapids Chief of Police, Eric Winstrom.
The Hollyhock Lane Parade doesn’t just peter out when the last police patrol car brings up the rear. As they do every year, neighbors turned off Giddings Avenue into an alley decorated with flags and bunting and gathered behind 847 Giddings Avenue to sing patriotic songs and listen to an honored speaker.
Elgin Vines and Company entertained the gathering crowd.
Once the crowd was assembled, the Master of Ceremonies opened the program, inviting the Spirit of 76 to raise the flag.
The Reverend Rebecca Jordan Heys, of Calvary Christian Reformed Church, led group in prayer.
Then the Master of Ceremonies introduced the keynote speaker, Mary Esther Lee, who for years helped organize the parade. Ms. Lee spoke about the ties that bind the neighborhood together. She recounted the story of having moved into the neighborhood in the 1970s not knowing that her backyard was the focal point of activities on the Fourth of July. “Why do you think there was a flagpole in your backyard by the alley,” her neighbors asked. Ms. Lee embraced the parade, joining the planning committee the next year and leading the ceremony for many years.
The program ended with the singing of The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America and the presentation of awards to children who competed in the float competition. The floats were judged and awards were presented by the family of Congresswoman Scholten, a role her family has filled for a number of years before she was elected to Congress.
The winner of the of the award for the patriotic float was “American Shark.”
The float was created by a young boy from New York City. He was here visiting his grandmother. “My mom grew up in this neighborhood,” he told me after the ceremony. And his mother was in the parade back then. Perhaps that helps to understand what makes the Hollyhock Lane Parade so special. For generations it has brought neighbors together to commemorate our country’s independence, to say the pledge and sing our nation’s anthems, to celebrate community and civic spirit, and to teach our children the importance of it all.
Beginning in mid-March, I made frequent visits to observe a pair of nesting swans on Reeds Lake in my hometown. It was an exciting time, as some birds migrated through and others set about the business of raising a family. My photos of the swans and there story can be found here. Below is a gallery of some of the other birds and wildlife at the lake. (Clicking on an image may open it is full size..)
I have spent the last two-and-a-half months at a nearby lake, observing a pair of nesting swans. I have learned a lot about mute swans from reading and from observation. In this blog piece, I will share a few observations and some photographs.
March 18, 2023, was a blustery day in my hometown, a great day to do photography. So I grabbed my camera and went for a walk on a boardwalk that runs through a marshy area of nearby Reeds Lake. On my walk, I came upon a swan nest about 40 feet from the boardwalk. It wasn’t immediately noticeable since the swan and her nest were covered with snow.
I stood and watched for a while as the cob approached the nest and the two birds ultimately changed positions.
The pen left the marsh and headed out to open water to eat. The cob stood preening himself before eventually sitting on the nest.
The Eggs
On March 24, I got my first glimpse of eggs on the nest. As she would do throughout the gestation period of the eggs, the pen stood up briefly from time to time and rotated the eggs using her bill.
Mute swans lay an egg every day or two until their clutch is complete. On average, a clutch contains about six eggs. By April 5, the pen had laid nine eggs. The eggs were clearly visible on April 5, when the swans were busy raising the level of the nest. The night before, we had received close to 2 inches of rain and the lake water rose to within inches of the top of the nest. The cob and pen worked feverishly to add to the nest.
The nine eggs were clearly visible as the pen climbed back onto the nest.
A Note About Mute Swans
The Reeds Lake swans are mute swans, a species that was introduced to the northeast United States to decorate ornamental ponds and lakes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Escaped swans began to spread throughout the northeast. According to an account in the Petoskey News, mute swans were introduced into Michigan in 1918 near Charlevoix. The News reported that the swans were imported to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from England by George Bruce Douglas. When the swans proved too aggressive to be among his children, Douglas moved them to Michigan, where the family spent its summers.
There were an estimated 15,000 swans in Michigan in 2010. With no natural predators, the population of mute swans in Michigan continues to grow by about 10 percent each year. The State of Michigan classifies mute swans as “non-native invasive species.”
Mute swans have a significant negative impact on the environment. According to the Michigan Audubon Society, “[t]he species’ capacity for consuming upwards of 8 pounds of aquatic vegetation per day while also dislodging an equal or greater amount, causes substantial damage to wetland habitats, reduces native floral diversity, and can decimate vegetation beyond the point where it can regenerate.” The Wilderness Society says its primary concern in Michigan is the impact mute swans have on threatened and endangered native species, including trumpeter swans and common loons.
Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources described mute swans as “[o]ne of the world’s most aggressive waterfowl species, especially while nesting and raising their young.” Mute swans will drive out other native waterfowl. The State’s official policy, adopted in 2012, is to reduce the spring population of mute swans in Michigan to less than 2,000 by the year 2030. The State has established procedures for the removal and destruction of nests and eggs.
Protecting the Nesting Area
As I continued to check in on the swans, I saw several examples of the aggressive behavior of the cob. Not far from the swan nest, a pair of geese established their nest with six eggs.
The cob was not happy with this at all. I watched for an hour one day as the cob threatened the goose and the gander. The cob parked itself within a few feet of the goose nest and alternated between resting its head under its wing and snapping at the goose and gander. The goose and gander stood their ground against the much larger swan.
I visited the goose nest the evening of April 28. All was well. When I returned early the next morning, the goose eggs and geese were gone without a trace, not even a broken shell. It is a mystery how the nest could disappear overnight. Did the cob finally strike? Cobs have been known to stomp on the eggs of other birds. But how can there be no trace?
I saw several other examples of the cob protecting its territory. Early one morning when I arrived, the pen was asleep on the nest, while the cob slept next to the nest in the water. Suddenly, the cob awoke and quickly left the nest, assuming an aggressive stance. I caught a photo of the swan taking flight to chase two swans that had landed halfway across the lake. I was amazed that the cob was alert enough in his slumber to sense that swans were present hundreds of yards away.
I watched on other occasions when the cob gave chase to geese in the marsh.
Reeds Lake
Reeds Lake is a 283 acre lake in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. From its furthest point in the east to its furthest point in the west, the lake stretches 1.22 miles. While most of the property along the shore has been given over to stately homes, the western shore includes the town’s middle school, city and public safety offices, library, a marina, and John Collins Park (which includes the East Grand Rapids High School crew team’s boat house), and a public boat launch.
The northwesternmost part of the lake is a marshland area adjacent to Waterfront Park and Hodenpyl Woods. A boardwalk extends through the marsh along a channel that leads to nearby Fisk Lake. The swan nest is just 40 feet from the boardwalk, in plain sight.
Image from Google Earth 5/23/2023.
In the spring, the marshland attracts a wide range of returning and migrating species and it seems a similar number of birdwatchers. Male red-winged blackbirds are among the first to arrive. The males battle to establish to territory in anticipation of the females’ arrival a month later.
A red-winged blackbird staking its claim to territory on a snowy day in March.
A female red-winged blackbird in her nest.
For a couple of weeks, American coots by the hundreds were on the lake as they passed through.
The coots are skittish birds and very difficult to get near, but they are great at providing early warning of approaching bald eagles. When an eagle comes near, the coots all quickly fly for cover in the reeds.
The marshland is home, or a temporary stop, for a wide variety of wildlife. I have posted a gallery of some of the photos of the inhabitants of the lake that I took on my visits.
Will they Ever Hatch?
As March turned into April and April turned into May, people observing the nest began to wonder whether the eggs would ever hatch. Mute swan eggs generally hatch 36 to 42 days after the pen lays her last egg. Miraculously, all of the eggs hatch on the same day. From my observations, I calculated that the pen laid her last egg around April 3 or 4. I have the photo of 9 eggs, which I took on April 5, and never saw more than that. Forty-two days passed on May 16. As I write this today, sixty days have passed since April 5. Nonetheless, the swans have not given up hope and continue to tend to the eggs.
It has been a long ordeal for the pen, who spends most of her time on the nest. I have read that the pen loses as much as 40% of her body weight while she sits on the nest. The pen gets up regularly to rotate the eggs and change her position on the nest.
The cob does change places with her from time to time. This “changing of the guard” tends to follow a certain routine. First, the pen stands up and tries to cover the eggs with loose down that is in the nest.
Then, the pen leaves the nest after the cob approaches. The first time I witnessed the change, the cob never climbed onto the nest. Instead, he stayed near the side of the nest and kept a watchful eye on the eggs.
When the cob does climb on the nest, he tends to stand and preen himself for about a half hour before finally settling down on the nest. When the swans get on the nest they often do so with outstretched wings.
As time has passed, the scene has changed dramatically from the snow-covered scene in March to a lush marshland in May and June. The swans have continued out of habit to add to the nest. Here the cobs sits on the nest on May 22 waiting for the pen’s return.
As May turned into June, against hope people, including myself, reached the conclusion that we would see no cygnets. Nonetheless, I have continued to visit the nest every day and marvel that the pen and cob continue their vigil. This morning, when I saw the pen peering back at me from the nest, I thought back to that day in March when I first saw the snow-covered pen.
It has been an interesting project for me to visit the nest each day. I have made many new acquaintances and renewed some old ones as we stood on the boardwalk wondering when the eggs would hatch. I have enjoyed getting a better attuned to nature and appreciating the wonder of renewal that spring brings. While it would seem to be a miracle if the eggs were to hatch now, I will continue to stop by the lake once or twice a day until the pen and the cob finally give up their vigil.
May 26, 2023. The female swan rises from the nest and rotates her eggs.
For over two months, I have been checking in on a pair of swans that have a nest with eggs on Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapid, Michigan. I have met a number of people who have also been observing the swans and promised them that I would share my photos on this blog once the eggs hatch. Well, as of late this morning, no cygnets yet. The swans are still sitting on the eggs. But come back later and hopefully the eggs will have hatched and I will be able to post the completed article with photos.
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I visited Silver Lake Sand Dunes State Park yesterday anticipating the graceful dunes I had seen on previous visits. (See “The Sand Dunes at Silver Lake State Park.”) But, instead, the sinuous dunes I had anticipated looked more like sedimentary rock that had been disturbed by some incredible force.
The dunes freeze in the winter, so only a fine layer of grains of sand at the surface are free to blow with the wind. I suspect that the formations I saw were caused by the expansion and contraction of the ice crystals in the sand as our crazy temperatures have swung wildly this winter. Having anticipated smooth dunes, I needed to shift gears. I decided to go in close and photograph the formations left by the ice and the wind.
Photos from my previous visits to Silver Lake can be found here:
