Landscapes – Photography by Rodney Martin

Country roads

Country Roads, Fall, Fall colors, Grand Rapids, Landscapes, My photography

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

Once in a Blue Moon

Fall, Fall colors, Landscapes, My photography, Point Oneida, Seascapes and lakescapes, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore

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.

Fall Colors on Hall Lake

Fall, Landscapes, My photography, Yankee Springs

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.

Dawn on Otter and Bass Lakes

Landscapes, My photography, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore

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.

_MG_5578-Pano-Edit-Edit-Edit — A hint of sunrise on Otter Lake.

_MG_5588 — I wish this photo had a soundtrack. If it did you could hear the call of a loon that welcomed the dawn.

_MG_5595 — The sun-bleached roots of a toppled tree.

The Peace of Wild Things

Landscapes, My photography, Woodlands photography

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.

“Our Magnificent Planet”

Landscapes, My photography

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.)

Basch Road farm, Point Oneida, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. #puremittigan #puremichigan #awesomemitten #upnorth #leelanaucounty #Leelanau #leelanaupeninsula #mileelanau #sleepingbearnps #sleepingbeardunes #shareslbe #PointOneida

Leading lines. #fog #foggy #train #bridge #trainbridge #trailrails #grandrapids #grandrapidsmi #grandrapidsmichigan

Favorite photos of 2019

Landscapes, Leelanau Conservancy, My photography, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Yellowstone National Park

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.

_MG_0029 BW 16x9 — The first snowfall comes to the Absaroka Range on the east side of Paradise Valley, Montana, in September.

_MG_0162-orton-2 — Sheepeater Canyon in Yellowstone National Park.

_MG_0429-Pano — Undine Falls in Yellowstone National Park. This photo is a vertical panorama, combining three photos.

_MG_1444 — The Gibbon River as it approaches the Virginia Cascades in Yellowstone National Park.

_MG_7381-bw — The granary on the Pete and Jenny Burfiend farm in the Point Oneida historic farm district of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

_MG_7407 — Pete and Jenny Burfiend bought their Point Oneida farm in 1882. They initially lived in a log cabin, but sometime in the 1880s hired Martin Basch to build this farmhouse.

_MG_7700 — Warm morning light breaks through the forest at the Houdek Dunes Natural Area on the Leelanau Peninsula in Michigan. The Houdek Dunes Natural Area is owned by the Leelanau Conservancy.

_MG_8781-HDR — The Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Montana. Mount Electric is in the background.

_MG_8840 — A huge wave hits the breakwater at Point Betsie, north of Frankfort, Michigan.

_MG_8914 — The Gardner River as it flows out of Yellowstone National Park to the town of Gardiner (spelled differently than the river), Montana, where it flows into the Yellowstone River.

_MG_9517 — I came upon this doe and her two fawns on a foggy morning near Clarksville, Michigan. They were kind enough to allow me to do a U-turn so I could shoot out the driver’s-side window of my car.

_MG_9938 — The Royal 7 Motel in Bozeman, Montana. This is a composite of several photos I made to balance the light. I wanted to capture the garish light of the neon sign and well as the warm, inviting light in the windows of the motel lobby. I loved the reflection of the sign on the wet pavement. (I stood out in the rain to get the shot.)

Intentional Camera Movement

ICM, Landscapes, My photography

Using a slow shutter speed and camera movement to create a more abstract image.

A visit to Yellowstone National Park – Album #1

Landscapes, My photography, Yellowstone National Park

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.

We stayed at the Grizzly Den Cabin, an Airbnb about 5 miles north of Gardiner on the Old Yellowstone Road. (Click an image to see it larger.)

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a beautiful double rainbow.

In the river just outside are cabin was an island. The owner told us that bears liked to bed down on the island. But, all we saw were these elk. Within a few hundred yards of our cabin were about 100 elk in what looked like three different harems.

A prominent landmark near our cabin was Cinnabar Mountain, with the unusual red formation that the sun nicely highlighted in this photo. The feature was named “the Devil’s Slide” by members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870 and captured in a drawing byThomas Moran the following year when he was part of the Hayden Geological Survey.

The drive from the Grizzly Den Cabin to Gardiner was along the Old Yellowstone Road, a dirt road that traveled along the base of the Gallatin Mountain Range.

At 10,969 feet, Electric Peak is the tallest mountain in the Gallatin Range. Electric Peak was given its name by members of they Hayden Geological Survey in 1871.

I loved the texture of the landscape along the Old Yellowstone Road.

A pronghorn seen along the Old Yellowstone Road.

After traveling four miles or so along the Old Yellowstone Road, you come over a hill and get your first view of Gardiner. Montana. On the right in this photo you can see the Roosevelt Arch, the north entrance to the park. The large building in the foreground of the town is the Yellowstone research building.

A view of main street Gardiner.

I took several pictures of the iconic Roosevelt Arch. The arch was build by the U.S. Army in 1903. At the time, the Army supervised the park from Fort Yellowstone in Mammoth Springs. The National Park Service was not established until 1916.

President Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the arch in 1903.

“For the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” words from the Organic Act of 1872, which established Yellowstone as the first national park in the world.

The light on the arch seemed to be different each morning.

This bull elk was keeping a watchful eye on his harem near the arch. The harem spent most of its time in and around Gardiner. We often saw them on the high school football field.

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.