A couple of shots from a morning wander in the country.


Plus occasional links to things I find interesting on the Internet
A couple of shots from a morning wander in the country.
On Saturday, we had a full moon for the second time in October. The moon set at 8:10 a.m., so I thought it would be good time to capture a photo of the moon close to the horizon. Things didn’t quite go as I had planned, but it was a wonderful morning for photography.
Prior to my trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, I used a couple of apps to find the right spot to shoot the setting moon. I needed something of interest in the foreground. What I hadn’t considered was that it would be dark and cold. I hadn’t given enough thought about how to balance a dark foreground against the brilliant light of a full moon. Still, I got this shot, which I like very much.
I chose to shoot the setting moon at a familiar spot, the Peter and Jenny Burfiend farm at Point Oneida in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Sunrise would follow the moonset by about 15 minutes, so as I stood in a field, the sky became brighter, allowing enough light that the granary was no longer silhouetted.
According to a map I have of Point Oneida, this is the old pig house on the Burfiend farm.
As the sun came up, I was surprised to see the beautiful fall colors still on the trees. This is the house on the Burfiend farm.
After the sun came up, I stopped by Bass Lake. I had stopped there three weeks earlier when the colors were just coming on.
The colors were stunning.
After stopping at Bass Lake, I drove to nearby Narada Lake. The corner of the lake near the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail had a thin layer of ice that would disappear later in the day.
The view across Narada Lake was every bit as stunning as that on Bass Lake.
In the shadows of Narada Lake I saw this reflection of the leaves and a single dead tree that was bleached white.
Lily pads were frozen in ice.
This is the barn on the Lawr farm, which adjoins the Burfiend farm.
George and Louisa Lawr established the farm in the 1890s and and continued to farm there until 1945.
My last site for shooting was along Westman Road, in the wetlands north of Tucker Lake. These berries caught my eye.
The bright yellow tree is a tamarack, also known as an Eastern Larch. Tamaracks are conifers that grow in the wet soils around swamps and bogs and near lakes. Unlike other conifers, each fall their needles turn bright yellow and fall to the ground.
These maples leaves had fallen onto the ice in the wetlands near Tucker Lake.
The weather forecast called for snow on the Leelanau Peninsula last evening. I am sure the next time I venture north, the area will present starkly different things to photograph.
I visited the Yankee Springs Recreational Area yesterday, south of Grand Rapids, to catch another glimpse of beautiful fall colors. I set up on the edge of Hall Lake to see what the morning light would bring.
Dew on these branches that overhang Hall Lake catch the first morning light against a backdrop of mist and fall colors.
Reflections of the clouds as they catch the first rays of sunlight.
When the sun rose, the riot of color was revealed.
While I was out seeking fall colors, this scene of leave in the shallows of Hall Lake caught my eye and looked best to me as a black and white image.
Otter and Bass Lakes are located a stone’s throw away from each other in the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. I visited there early yesterday and took these photos.
From Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things“:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
Some peaceful images after a terrible night in our city and across the country.
I submitted three photographs to Lenswork Magazine today for possible inclusion in a book they will publish this fall titled, “Our Magnificent Planet.” They will select 300 photographs from those submitted. Fingers crossed, they will select one of these. (Click on images to see them full size.)
As the year comes to a close, it is a good time to look back at the year’s batch of photos and assess how I did. Ansel Adams said, “Twelve significant photos in any one year is a good crop.” I can’t claim significance for these twelve photos but they are my favorites of 2019.
Each time I look at the photos, I see imperfections, which to me is a good sign since it tells me I am learning my craft, both the field work and the post processing. I have edited most of these photos several times with the goal of attaining what I envisioned when I was on location. Hopefully, they do not look over-processed to you.
Using a slow shutter speed and camera movement to create a more abstract image.
We spent a week exploring Yellowstone National Park. What an incredible place! I have lots of photos to edit. Here is the first bunch. We spent our first night in Bozeman, Montana, and then drove down Paradise Valley from Livingston, Montana, to Gardiner. We traveled along the Yellowstone River, as it flowed north to its eventual meeting with the Missouri River in North Dakota.
It had snowed in the higher elevations. These mountains are part of the Absaroka Range on the east side of Paradise Valley.
As soon as we entered the park the first day of our visit, we came across on confrontation between this bull elk and another that was showing a little too much interest in this bull’s harem.
The rut was on during our visit and the air frequently filled with the bugling of male elk.
The Gardner River (spelled differently than the town) as it flows out of the park to the town of Gardiner, where it flows into the Yellowstone River.
Looking back toward Gardiner from Mammoth Hot Springs, the headquarters of Yellowstone National Park.
A couple of shots taken along the back roads near Clarksville, Michigan.