I am excited to share information about “Woodland Studies,” a small exhibition of my photographs that will open at the Glen Arbor Art Center on January 7, 2022. The details can be found by following this link. If you happen to be on the Leelenau Peninsula this winter, stop by and have a look. If you can’t make it, the photos will also be available for viewing online at the link above.
I am grateful to the Glen Arbor Art Center for hosting this exhibition, the first of my work. I have enjoyed working with Gallery Director Sarah Bearup-Neal and have learned a great deal in preparing the prints for exhibit.
Jaume Plensa is a Spanish artist noted for his public sculpture. Visitors to Chicago have likely seen his Crown Fountain, the spitting fountain in Millennium Park. The Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has two works by Plensa and has commissioned yet another for its new entry way.
The DeVos family also commissioned a sculpture by Plensa, which was installed this week in downtown Grand Rapids. I have not been able to learn its name yet. I took some photos this morning.
Update: According to Experience Grand Rapids, the sculpture is named, “The Four Elements.” The sculpture uses letters, characters and element symbols to represent air, water fire and earth and signifies the diverse characteristics that bring people together to form a single human race.
The fall colors in northern Michigan are past their peak, but I was still treated to a beautiful color show yesterday at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This first photo, taken where Shalda Creek crosses Bohemian Road, reminds me of the final words from Thoreau’s Walden Pond: “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
Shalda Creek snakes through Sleeping Bear just south of Good Harbor Bay and pours out into the bay. Shortly before it does so the beaver have built a dam creating a pond in the forest.
As I passed by, I noticed the reflection of the golden leaves in the still water of the pond and stopped to take these photos.
Driving home along Indian Hill Road in Benzie County, I pulled over to take this photo of a lone tree in a plowed field.
The fall colors have been late in coming to Michigan this year. I am guessing that we are still a couple of weeks away from peak colors in southwest lower Michigan. I drove north yesterday hoping to find nature’s brilliant display. I can report that the area on my route from Cedar Springs north to Thompsonville put on quite a show. But as I reached the Leelanau Peninsula, it remained pretty green. That’s good for the tourist industry on the peninsula, as leaf peepers will continue to be drawn to the area, extending the season. It was not a bust, by any means. There were pockets of color, harbingers of what is yet to come.
I began the day in the field below the iconic D.H. Day barns near Glen Haven. I waited in darkness for the sun to rise and light up the clouds from underneath. That never quite happened, but the image below was still worth the wait.
I found some dramatic red colors on Tucker Lake, beneath Miller Hill.
I hiked along the Crystal River for a bit and came upon salmon spawning on a gravel bed. It was amazing to watch as the dominant male chased off other males and the females prepared to lay their eggs.
This trout stood still long enough for me to capture a semi-decent photo.
Here’s a dash of color I found along Bohemian Road (CR 669) near Shalda Creek.
The weather was interesting, with intermittent rain showers and sunshine. I took the photos above in my rain gear, holding a large umbrella over my tripod and camera. Rather than hiking in the occasional rain shower, I stayed close to my car and visited a few of the historic farms in the National Lakeshore.
The Bufka farm is near the northern boundary of the National Lakeshore, along M-22. It sits down in a valley below the highway. The farm was established in the 1850’s by Joseph Bergman, an immigrant from Germany. Bergman built a log cabin that still stands today and can be seen in the photo below (the building farthest to the right). Charles Bufka purchased the 200 acre farm in 1880 and, over time, built the buildings (other than the chicken coop) seen in the photo. Upon purchasing the farm, he also built a house. The cabin was converted to a chicken coop in 1940. More information about the Bufka farm can be found here, on the National Park Service’s website.
I visited the Ole and Magdalena Olsen farm on Kelderhouse Road in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. Ole Olsen was brought to North America from Norway by his grandparents in 1869 when he was 14. His grandparents settled in Sarnia, Ontario. Ole went to live with his uncle in Northport, on the Leelanau Peninsula. But soon his uncle and his family left to stake a claim in Minnesota under the Homestead Act, leaving Ole alone in Northern Michigan. In the early 1870s, Ole worked in the logging industry. In 1875, her met and married Magdalena Burfiend, whose father, Carsten, owned a 275 acre farm on what was the most valuable land in Port Oneida. With the help of Carsten Burfiend, Ole and Magdalena purchased their farm in 1877.
I took just a few photos on the Olsen farm, including this photo of the foundation for the barn.
The photo below is of the pig pen on the Olsen farm. Someone had placed a row of apples from a nearby tree on the window sill.
The photo below is of the farm buildings on Carsten Burfiend’s farm, with a lovely splash of color in the background.
As I left to return home, I drove by the Tweedle Farm on Norconk Road, south of the town of Empire.
Before driving home, I took one more photograph, a panoramic shot of the trees along Aral Road in Benzie County. While the colors had generally not reached their peak in the areas I visited, there were still areas of resplendent displays of fall foliage. Rain or shine – and I experienced both – it was well worth the trip.
Last year, I submitted three photographs to Lenswork Magazine for possible publication in its inaugural edition of “Our Magnificent Planet,” a book that featured 300 photographs by 300 photographers from around the world. The editors selected my photograph of the Granary on the Pete and Jennie Burfiend farm in the the Port Oneida Historic District of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Last month, I submitted three photos for the second annual edition of “Our Magnificent Planet.” Today, I received notice that one of my images was selected for publication. The editors did not disclose which image they chose. Here are the three images. I will let you be the judge.
Some photos taken yesterday morning as the sun rose on Esch Road Beach in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Waves on Lake Michigan cut away at the beach, leaving this temporary pool.Clouds over Lake Michigan.Incoming waves swamp a stump that has washed ashore.For a brief few moments, the receding waves created this pattern in the water. A crocodile? Nessie?
I drove north to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore earlier this week. It is a trip I take regularly. My drive takes about 3 hours. The anticipation builds as the first hints of morning light begin to reveal the conditions. The last three times I have made the trip, I drove through areas of fog, giving me hope that my destination would be shrouded with interesting atmosphere. On my previous two trips, the fog dissipated about 5 miles from the lakeshore. But, Tuesday a low fog hung on for me.
Noticing that the fog lingered in open fields, I decided to start photographing in the Point Oneida Rural Historic District. I started at the Pete and Jennie Burfiend farm. I have taken photos of this old granary at all times of the year. Enamored of its simplicity, I am drawn back time and time again.
Up the road from the Burfiend granary is the Martin and Allay Basch Farm. Fog engulfed the fields on both sides of the farm buildings.
Continuing on Baker Road (formerly known as the “Back Road”), I came to a clearing that overlooks the wetlands along Kelderhouse Road and took this panoramic shot.
Off to the side of the clearing was this tangle of poplars.
The clearing also overlooks the Carsten and Elizabeth Burfiend farm on Point Oneida Road. The Burfiends homesteaded the land, which sits on the bluff above Sleeping Bear Bay, in 1852.
I ended my morning shoot photographing the Tucker Lake wetlands along S. Westman Road. This area has frustrated me in the past, as it was just a little bit beyond the reach of my 70-200 mm lens. I recently upgraded to a 70-300 mm lens, which enabled these shots.
During the second week of our Cape Cod vacation, we stayed in Eastham, Massachusetts on Target View Beach. The beach is on the Brewster Flats, the largest tidal flats in North America, extending 9.7 miles from Brewster to North Eastham. When the tide goes out on the flats, it really goes out. From the high water mark on our beach, we could walk a half mile at low tide before reaching the water’s edge. Here’s a collection of photos I took during our week in Eastham – lot’s of beached boats, but I couldn’t resist.
Target Beach at high tide.Target Beach at high tide.
The receding tide left all sorts of interesting things in the tide pools and beached on the sand. (Click on an image to see it enlarged.)
We recently spent a couple of weeks on Cape Cod visiting family. That gave me the chance to explore a different type of landscape than we have here in West Michigan. The Cape and West Michigan have much in common, with their sandy shores, dunes, and bodies of water that reach the horizon. But, of course, there are some key differences. Michigan promotes the Great Lakes as “unsalted and shark free,” and the Great Lakes do not have tides.
I was delighted to visit the salt marsh in Sandwich, Massachusetts. The marsh is twice a day flooded by salt water as the tide comes in. I was smitten with the marsh. The rich green of the marsh grasses and the oranges, purples, and magentas of the dawning light created a palette of colors that were hard to resist. I went back several days in a row.
A boardwalk passes through the marsh taking one from the parking lot, over a low dune to the beach on Cape Cod Bay.
Homes and cottages in the town of Sandwich line the shore of Cape Cod Bay and the edges of the marsh.
I was struck by the texture of the marsh grass and the sensuous curves created by the tidal waters as they carved their way through the marsh at high tide.
Landscape photographers generally aren’t excited by cloudless, bluebird skies. In composing the “grand landscape,” an empty sky is negative space that most of the time adds little to the composition. I have seen a lot of bluebird skies this spring and early summer. But on Tuesday, I was treated to some great clouds.
I hiked the Sleeping Bear Point Trail in Glen Haven, Michigan. The main trail travels 1.9 miles up and down over the sand dunes. After the initial climb, you drop down to an area known as the ghost forest.
The ghost forest has the remains of trees that were buried by the dunes and that have now been exposed as the dunes shifted.
After completing the trail I headed off to other parts of the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. While shooting at the Thoreson Farm, I noticed the clouds building off to the west and headed down to the shore of Sleeping Bear Bay in time to catch a thunderstorm coming ashore. In the distance, a great lakes freighter made its way through the Manitou Passage under a roll cloud.
The roll cloud extend across the sky.
The storm spawned several waterspouts like this one.
I continued taking photographs until I thought better of standing on the shore amidst the lightning.
Grateful for the dramatic skies, I headed back to my car and the safety of lunch at the Good Harbor Grill.
