Year End Favorites – Photography by Rodney Martin

Looking Back at 2025

Published on December 18, 2025 by rdmegr

At the end of each year, I look back at what I have accomplished in the past twelve months and look forward to the next twelve. I spent most of my “photography time” this year with my nose in the books, preparing and delivering lectures on the history of photography. But, along the way, I of course found the time to get out with my camera. Here’s a brief review of my activities and some favorite photos from 2025.

Hitting the Lecture Circuit

As in 2024, a major focus of my photographic activity involved researching the history of photography and the impact on it of artificial technology. I presented two lectures on the history of photography at the Hope Academy of Senior Professionals, the lifelong learning program at Hope College. These lectures, titled “Editing Reality: The History of Manipulated Photography,” were similar to the ones I gave last year at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids. The lecture on artificial technology has to be continually updated as the technology continues to develop.

In addition, I presented a new lecture for OLLI titled “On the Road: Photographing America in 1955.” That lecture related the story of two photographers, Robert Frank and Todd Webb, who were each awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955 to travel across America, Frank by car, Webb on foot and by skiff and bicycle. Frank’s photos were published in the classic book “The Americans,” which would influence a new aesthetic in photography, while Webb’s photos went virtually unseen until they were rediscovered in 2016. The lecture looked at both projects to see what they have to tell us about photography and America in the mid-fifties.

Doing the research for this new lecture was time-consuming but rewarding. I had the opportunity to visit an exhibit of photographs from Frank and Webb’s Guggenheim projects at the Brandywine Art Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. And, I was fortunate that the Todd Webb Archive shared with me the entries in Webb’s unpublished daily journal from 1954 through 1956. Webb’s journal provided me with several insights into a remarkable photographer – and Michigan native – who was prominent in the 1950s but has been overlooked for decades.

Some of My Favorite Photos from 2025

Of course, I was out taking photos during the year, although not as much as I wanted. Life happens and sometimes hobbies have to be set aside. I have looked back over the images I took this year and have selected a dozen that I am particularly fond of.

On a cold day in January, the frost on one of our windows and screens caught my eye.

In March, I set out to photograph of the Milky Way, which I thought would begin making its appearance above the horizon. My calculations were off, but I did get a photograph of the night sky that was the reward for standing on the shore of Sleeping Bear Bay on a dark, cold night.

In June, I spent a week in Glen Arbor, Michigan, with my family and was able to get out early in the morning and on a couple of evenings. I took this image as the sun was setting. A 10 second exposure softened the clouds and smoothed the water, making for a tranquil photograph.

On the same trip, I visited my favorite tangle of roots on the shore of Lime Lake. On some future visit to this site, I am sure the roots will have lost their grip and the cedar trees will have succumbed to the water. But for now they are holding firm. I have photographed in this location several times. The challenge is always to come up with a different perspective. This time I chose to take the photo looking out towards the lake, framed by two, old cedar trees that themselves are firmly rooted in terra firma.

On a visit to North Bar Lake on a foggy morning, I came across these sandhill cranes marching in unison along the shore.

Back home on the Fourth of July, I captured the joy of chasing bubbles at the annual Hollyhock Lane Parade.

On a trip to Massachusetts in a community garden I came across these Garden Phlox that seemed to be exploding towards my lens.

In August, we took a cruise down the Rhine River from Basel, Switzerland, to Amsterdam. Of all the photos I took, this one may be my favorite. We were in the Kunstmuseum in Basel and I saw this scene nicely framed by the window. The window shade softened the scene. It could have been a picture, so I took one. There’s no accounting for taste.

The Middle Rhine passes through an area of steep hills with vineyards and castles. The area has been designated as a World Heritage Site. It is beautiful. As you can imagine, I took lots of photos. But as you get north of Cologne, Germany, the river becomes more industrial. I found it just as interesting as the Middle Rhine.

Back home in late August, I visited the mouth of the Platte River in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore before sunrise, but not before the fisherman were out to take advantage of the beginning of the annual salmon run.

Later that same day, I sat on the deck of The Mill in Glen Arbor and enjoyed a cup of coffee and the reflections in the Crystal River.

I was able to get out one last time in November, before the woods filled with deer hunters. This tree has been lying on the ground for years. Each time I see it with its u-shaped base, I wonder what it must have looked like before it fell.

Looking Ahead to 2026

I am excited that one of my photos has been accepted into a juried exhibit at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. The exhibit is titled “INteriors” and explores inner spaces, both real and imagined. I submitted this image, a composite I created by blending two self-portraits in Photoshop to convey a sense of introspection.

My artist’s statement reads: “As a photographer, I am always looking outward, assessing how I would compose an image of the scene that is before me. At the same time, I am looking inward, searching for something that resonates inside me and tells me it is time to press the shutter.”

INteriors opens on Friday, January 9, 2026, and runs until March 12.

In the spring, I will be giving two more lectures. On April 25, at 1:00 pm, I will be giving a talk on digital photography and the impact artificial intelligence at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. Then, on May 5, at 1:30 pm, I will presenting “On the Road: Photographing America in 1955” for the Lifelong Learning program at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan.

(Here are links to my my year-end review of images in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.)

2024 in Review

Published on December 31, 2024 by rdmegr

As I write this, 2024 is quickly coming to a close. Time once again to look back and select some photos from this year that I especially like.

This year was a little different from previous years because my main photography focus for the year was researching and preparing two lectures that I delivered in November at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (“OLLI”) at Aquinas College. The lectures were titled, “Editing Reality: The History of Manipulated Photography.” The first lecture dealt with the period before the digital age, while the second began with the digital age and got into the consideration of the impact of artificial intelligence on photography. I had a blast doing the research, reading a wide range of sources and, though the lectures are done, my reading continues to focus on the history of photography.

Incidentally, I was honored that OLLI sought my permission to use my photographs on their Fall and Winter Course Catalogs.

I am principally a landscape photographer who shoots in what some have termed, “the eyewitness tradition.” I edit my photos to create a realistic image that truthfully presents how I saw what was before me when I clicked the shutter. I do not use generative artificial intelligence or insert items into my images that were not before me. That said, this year I experimented making multiple exposure and montage images. There were two that I particularly liked.

I created this first image from three exposures taken of the side of a dumpster at the East Grand Rapids Public Works Facility. I blended them together in Photoshop. I rather liked the result.

This tree is one of my favorites. Standing alone in a farmer’s field, it reveals its majesty. On the day I took this photo, the sky was cloudless. While the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue, to my eye, the sky offered nothing of interest. Photoshop now allows one to replace the sky with a menu of clouds. Doing so seems disingenuous and certainly would violate the eyewitness tradition I adhere to. Rather than create an artificial photo and present it as real, I chose to try something a little different – a composite of two photographs, one the photo of the tree and the field, the other an image of the bark of a tree for the sky.

Earlier this year, the Glen Arbor Arts Center put out a call for entries to a juried show titled “The Sky is Always There.” The prospectus called for entries that “move beyond direct representation, beyond portraits of puffy clouds.” I was eager to try to get something accepted for the show, but my photography is very representational. I gave it much thought but was coming up empty. Then, after creating cyanotypes of leaves and twigs with my grandchildren I got the idea of submitting photographs of the night sky processed as cyanotypes for this exhibition.

I selected three digital images – a moonrise, the Milky Way, and the northern lights – to create a triptych. From the digital files, I created monochrome negatives of each image. I used a mixture of ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide to sensitize hot-pressed, 100% cotton watercolor paper to UV light. Then I made contact prints from each negative by exposing the negative and paper to a UV light source. To deepen the blues, I bathed the final prints in hydrogen peroxide.

I am pleased to say that the juror selected my entry for the exhibit, which will run from January 10 to March 20, 2025, at the Glen Arbor Arts Center in Glen Arbor, Michigan.

Here’s a selection of more straightforward images that are among my favorites for 2024:

“Sunrise on Sleeping Bear Bay,” Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

“Hall Lake Morning,” Yankee Springs Recreation Area

“Lake Superior Lakeshore from Above,” Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

“Lake Superior Stones,” George Hite Dunes, Eagle Harbor, Michigan

“Milky Way,” Port Oneida Rural Historic District, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

“Northern Lights over White Lake,” Wabaningo, Michigan

“Hanging On,” Teichner Preserve: The Leelanau Conservancy

“Fall Foliage,” Howard and Mary Dunn Edwards Nature Sanctuary, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy

“Turkey Tail and Maple Leaf,” Houdek Dunes Natural Area: The Leelanau Conservancy

In the coming year, I will continue to research the history of photography. Of particular interest to me are cabinet cards created in the second half of the 19th century. I will also continue to deepen my understanding of generative artificial intelligence and its impact of the art of photography. And, of course, I will continue to get out with my camera in an effort to capture nature’s beauty.

Happy New Year

Here are links to my my year-end review of images in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024.

Fifteen Images from 2023

Published on December 30, 2023 by rdmegr

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.

Looking Back at 2022

Published on December 30, 2022December 30, 2022 by rdmegr

It’s that time of year again, time to look back at over the past 12 months. The year 2022 offered me some wonderful opportunities to share my work. In addition, we had the opportunity to travel abroad, in the course of which I was reminded of a valuable lesson. Here are some thoughts on the past year and several of my favorite photos taken in the last 12 months.

SHOWING MY WORK

The Glen Arbor Art Center exhibited six of my photos in its lobby gallery at the start of the year. The show, titled Woodland Studies, was my first opportunity of its kind, for which I am extremely grateful to the Art Center and to the Art Center’s Gallery Manager, Sarah Bearup-Neal. Sarah guided me through the process of curating the exhibit and getting it ready to show. Sarah and I recorded a video conversation about the photos in the exhibit, which you can find here. The online version of the exhibit is no longer on the Art Center’s website, but you can view it here.

The Art Center provided me with two other opportunities to display my photos. The following photo was displayed as part of the annual “Members Create” exhibit in April and May. The exhibit is a non-juried show open to members of the Art Center.

*Silver Lake Sand Dune, Mears, Michigan*

The Art Center also invited me to submit photos to the “Small Works Holiday Exhibition,” where artists display small, original art work for sale for $150 or less. I displayed eight photographs, three of which were taken in 2022.

In addition to displaying work at the Glen Arbor Art Center, I entered a photo in the Ray and Nancy Loeschner Annual Art Competition at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. I had not heard of the competition before September of this year, but the timing was fortuitous. Some dear friends of mine married at the end of August. Their registry included an 11×14 frame, which we purchased and gave to them along with a note offering to fill the frame with one of my photos. They chose a photo I had taken of Aria, a wonderful sculpture by Alexander Liberman, which was acquired by the Gardens in 1999. The more I worked with the photo to make a beautiful print, the more I came to love it. I was excited to have the opportunity to enter it in the competition and was gratified to learn recently that is has been selected as a finalist. The final judging will occur in January 2023.

TRAVEL

My wife and I traveled to Jerusalem and Paris in early June. Of course, I took my camera and I took plenty of snapshots. The snapshots will help us remember the experience, but the photography was not the focus of the trip. I do, however, want to share one photo with you. We toured Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Sainte-Chapelle was the royal chapel in the palace of the King of France. The chapel was consecrated in the year 1248. The upper chapel has 15 stained glass windows, each 15 meters tall, that include 1,113 scenes from the Old and New Testament. In a crowded chapel filled with tourists there was neither time nor room to take a studied photo, but I was pleased to get this photo, which will serve as a reminder of the most beautiful room I think I have ever seen.

MY FAVORITE PHOTOS OF 2022

At the end of the year, I like to look through my photos and select a group of images that are my favorite photos from the past 12 months. Here’s what I came up with for 2022.

The first photo is a close up of Honey Creek in winter time. We don’t have waterfalls or big significant rapids in southwest lower Michigan. But, by focusing close on an ice formation in the creek, a small scene becomes filled with action and drama.

I enjoy being in the forest in winter. I find the stillness, the quiet, peacefulness, and even the challenge of staying warm to be reinvigorating.

I took this next photo in the Silver Lake Sand Dunes in Mears, Michigan. The shifting sands reveal the stumps of trees, such as this one, that were swallowed up by the dunes years ago. The early morning light shining on this stump accentuated the grain in the wood and the embedded grains of sand.

Coming upon the following scene was a pleasant surprise. I was on a trail that passed through a pine forest. The pine trees were so thick and the canopy so dense that little else could grow in the area. I didn’t expect to see anything of interest to photograph along the trail. But a brief break in the clouds created patches of sunlight on the forest floor that brought depth and dimensionality to what otherwise was a monotony of tree trunks.

Michigan is not at its photogenic best in early spring, when the snow has melted and brown is the dominant color. So I bought a dozen tulips and used them as my subject everyday for a couple of weeks. When they were fresh, the tulips exuded their typical elegance. But I found that it there was beauty to be found even as the tulips wilted.

I am attracted to gaps in the forest canopy created by the death of a tree. The gaps permit the sunlight to break through to the forest floor – a patch of hope in the darkness.

We visited Acadia National Park in mid-September. Peak fall color was still a month away, but as we hiked along the Jesup Path, we came upon this scene. It is a bit chaotic, but I thought the alignment of the birch trunks and the splashes of color brought an order to the chaos and made for an appealing photo.

I have shot this scene on Bass Lake in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore many times. (I included a photo of this point of land in my Woodland Studies exhibit.) But on this morning, I was fortunate to be able to shoot the scene in a dense fog, creating a softer, more soothing image.

A key to success in my photography is being aware. These last two photos are of things I might of missed had I not slowed down to take in my surroundings. I found this maple leaf beautifully highlighted by ice crystals when I took a walk on the morning of our first hard frost.

This was another happy find as I explored the shoreline of a local lake on a recent foggy morning.

Here are links to my favorite images of 2019, 2020, and 2021.

AN IMPORTANT LESSON

I learned an important lesson while in Paris. Everywhere we went in Paris, my camera went with me. I made a lot of snapshots. When we entered the Musée de l’Orangerie, I saw a sign showing a camera with a red circle and slash through it – no photography. So I checked my camera and began viewing the museum’s wonderful collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art. In the galleries, though, I noticed so many people taking photos with cameras and cell phones. The guards did not seem concerned, so I went back to look at the sign again and read the small print: “No flash photography.” I could have retrieved my camera, but chose not to. Without a camera, I explored the galleries with my wife, comparing thoughts about the paintings. I was able to see the art not only through my eyes but also through hers, which enriched my experience immensely.

In the museum that day, I learned in important lesson: sometimes the camera can get in the way of the experience. It’s a lesson I need to remember whenever I go off on a photo shot. I think if I focus on the experience first, my photographs will improve. But even if they don’t, I will find more meaning in those experiences and be a better person for it.

My Favorite Photos of 2021

Published on December 28, 2021December 29, 2021 by rdmegr

The year is drawing to a close and it is time to look back and select my favorite photos taken in 2021. I prefer to call them my “favorite” rather than my “best” photos. I am still learning the craft and the art of photography and still trying to figure out what “best” means. But, each of these photos is among the most personally satisfying photos I took this year.

Let’s begin with this photo of a thorny stick rising out of the snow. I was standing in the middle of a stream taking a photo of snow covered rocks when I looked and saw this stick on the shore. The contrast between the severity of the thorns and the softness of the snow made this image for me.

It was a cold morning in March when I took this photo on the Boardman River near Traverse City shortly before sunrise. The subtle purple and orange colors pulled me into the scene.

Early one Saturday morning, I took my camera downtown Grand Rapids. I rarely shoot in the urban environment, but this particular morning I just needed to get out with my camera. The light and shadow and the lack of any people in the scene reminded me of a painting by Edward Hopper. Hopper’s influence on photographers was highlighted in a 2009 exhibit by the Fraenkel Gallery and in “Edward Hopper and Company,” the book that accompanied the exhibition.

One of my favorite places to photograph is where the land meets water. I am drawn to the sound of moving water and to the reflections of the trees in the water. I used a slow shutter speed in this photo to smooth out the water in Honey Creek and accentuate the reflections.

I had the chance to visit Cape Cod this summer and was struck by the beauty of the salt marshes. I spent several mornings at the Sandwich Marsh and was grabbed by the color palette of greens, blues and purples. This shot too reminds me of Edward Hopper, who, of course, lived and painted on Cape Cod.

Our second week on Cape Cod, we stayed on the Brewster Flats, the widest expanse of tidal flats in North America. At low tide, we could walk out nearly a mile before coming to the ocean’s edge.

As I walked along the Houdek Dunes Trail this fall, the ferns had already turned brown and had begun to curl. I wasn’t sure there was a picture until I got in close and found this shot. I liked the shallow depth of field and contrast.

I traveled to Sleeping Bear Dunes 16 times in 2021, at least once in every month except December. My practice is to leave home early enough to make the three-hour drive in time to arrive an hour before sunrise, hoping for a beautiful morning glow. I have stood on the culvert where Shalda Creek flows underneath Bohemian Road many times waiting for that glow. That’s where I took this photo in November. This photo brings to mind that last few sentences of Thoreau’s Walden: “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

The reflection of fall foliage in a beaver pond on Shalda Creek made this image among my favorites. For me, the image has an abstract quality that I like.

This is one of my “U-Turn,” photos. I was driving home from Sleeping Bear when I passed this lone tree in a farmer’s field. I turned the car around, got out and set up my tripod to capture the scene. Landscape photographers gush about the light around sunrise and sunset. But in the late fall and winter, when the sun is not so high in the sky, mid-afternoon light can work just as well. The low angle of the light in this photo creates the shadows in the furrows and the deep, long shadow of the lone tree’s trunk.

I planned this shot even before I arrived in downtown Detroit during the first couple of days of December on a business trip. I had seen the American Coney Island on a similar trip two years ago. I remembered that the scene would be near my hotel and so I took along a small camera and travel tripod. I was fortunate to have some rain that reflected the light on the sidewalk and fortunate to have a lone diner in the restaurant. This is yet another image that reminds me of the work of Edward Hopper. Nighthawks in a coney island?

I came across this gathering of roots three years ago when visiting the Teichner Preserve on Lime Lake near Maple City, Michigan. I returned four or five times over the past three years looking for the right angle to get the compelling image I wanted. I finally found it on my second visit this year. I call the image “Gathering Place.” The image speaks to me about community. I have been asked whether I warped this image to make the trees spread out from the middle. I did not. Nature did. The trees on the very left of the image hang out over Lime Lake. I suspect that in a few years the trees on the left will succumb to the waves that eat away at the shoreline and then fall into the lake.

I am grateful that “Gathering Place” was selected by the editors of Lenswork Magazine for publication in its annual edition of “Our Magnificent Planet,” and will be included in “Woodland Studies,” an exhibit of my work this winter at the Glen Arbor Art Center.

I have taken over 8,000 photos in 2021. Yet, selecting a dozen favorites was not that difficult. The good ones stand out to me. Most of the images I took are pretty underwhelming and can be chalked up to learning the craft and art of photography – training the eye and developing the skill to capture what my mind’s eye sees. That might be discouraging to some, but to me it is all part of paying my dues. As Ansel Adams said, a dozen significant photographs in a year is “a pretty good crop.”

Here are links to my favorite images of 2019 and 2020.

Looking back on 2020

Published on January 1, 2021July 19, 2023 by rdmegr

The sun sets on Sleeping Bear Bay in Glen Arbor, Michigan

With 2020 thankfully in the rearview mirror, I am taking a moment to look back at the past year in my photography. I’ll share with you my personal favorites from among the photos I took. But first, I want to share some thoughts on my development as a photographer this year.

I have a sense that I did not shoot as much in 2020 as I did in 2019. I suspect, however, that is not really the case. I made 10 day trips to northern Michigan, nine to my favorite of places – Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and one to Hartwick Pines State Park near Grayling, home to a stand of virgin white pines. My wife and I also spent a week socially distancing in the heart of Sleeping Bear, allowing me to shoot in the park early each morning without having to leave home at 3:00 a.m. I also had a productive visit to the sand dunes at Silver Lake State Park. So, I had plenty of opportunities to shoot.

Locally, I got out quite out frequently as well, visiting Seidman Park multiple times and shooting at Fallasburg, Lowell, Yankee Springs, and the Sixth Street Dam,.

Logjam on the Sixth Street Dam, Grand Rapids, Michigan

So, as I think about it, it is probably not that I did not shoot as much this year as I did in the past. Instead, I didn’t shoot as much as I would have liked.

I have tried to use this year to improve both in the field and in my post-processing. I attended two on-line photo conferences that were incredibly instructive and inspirational. Out of Chicago Live was held right after we came under Michigan’s Covid stay-home, stay-safe order. The conference brought together instructors and participants from around the world and offered three days’ of instruction. I submitted 4 images for review and was thrilled with the positive feedback I received from Jack Curran and Tim Cooper.

Encouraged by their review I submitted three images to LensWork magazine for possible inclusion in a book it was publishing called Our Magnificent Planet. I learned later in the summer that one of the three – my photo of the Burfiend Granary – had been selected from among 2,700 entries for publication. The book came out in the fall. It is stunningly beautiful. I am honored to have been included.

The granary on the Peter and Jennie Burfiend farm in the Point Oneida Historic District in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

LensWork is a premier fine art photography magazine published by Brooks Jensen. I have subscribed to Lenswork for a number of years and listen to Brooks’s daily and weekly podcasts to benefit from his incredible insights.

In August, I attended another photography conference, this one titled Out of Chicago – In Depth. I participated in a number of 4-hour workshops, including one taught by Brooks Jensen and Jack Curran. That workshop focused on creating projects rather than simply single images. It inspired me to look at my photography in a different way and led me to produce my first folio to share with family and friends.

A folio is a set of photographs printed and intended to be viewed together. Choosing the photos, selecting the paper, and printing them became a project this fall. I decided to process the photos in black and white. I struggled to come up with a title for the folio and ultimately failed. Instead, I called it simply “Folio No. 1,” taking comfort in the fact that Ansel Adams named his seven portfolios simply numbers “I” through “VII.”

So much of photography today is viewed online. I wanted to provide a tactile experience where the viewer can hold the photo and study it without aid of a computer or cell phone. I was pleased with the final product and have begun working on Folio No. 2 and thinking about other projects to undertake.

Processing my folio photos in black and white was inspired by a workshop I did with Jack Curran at Out of Chicago Live. Jack was one of several influencers from whom I have learned this year. I did three workshops with Jack, who helped me begin to see the potential of black and white. Unfortunately, Jack passed away shortly after the workshop he taught with Brooks Jensen. Jack was an amazing, generous person with a love for sharing his gift for photography with others. I am glad I had the opportunity to learn from him.

Another influencer has been Brooks Jensen himself. Each issue of Brooks’s magazine, LensWork, exposes the reader to beautiful fine art photography, most of it in black and white. Brooks issues daily podcasts that cover a wide range of topics of interest to an aspiring photographer. Brooks also shares his photography for free in pdfs he publishes under the masthead Kokoro. On the website Lenswork Online, Brooks shares a treasure trove of commentary on fine art photography.

There is one other influencer I have come across only recently, Michael Kenna. Kenna is a British photographer now living in the U.S. His black and white photography is stunning. He spent several years in the early 1990s photographing the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The photographs are a master course in composition through light and shadow, shape and form. I only recently discovered Kenna and look forward to studying him further in 2021.

Interviewed in Lenswork in 2003, Kenna explained, “Photography, for me, is not about copying the world. I’m not really interested in making an accurate copy of what I see out there. I think one of photography’s strongest elements is its ability to record a part of the world, but also to integrate with the individual photographer’s aesthetic sense.” I am trying to find my way on the path toward developing my aesthetic sense and am grateful to Jack Curran, Brooks Jensen and Michael Kenna for lighting the way. My aim is not to emulate their photos but to find my own way of expressing what I see and feel when I am out with my camera. That is the journey I am on.

So all this was a a rather long-winded introduction to sharing my favorite photos of 2020. I’ve chosen a baker’s dozen to share with you. I hope you enjoy them.

Bass Lake, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Uprooted, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Intentional camera movement photograph of docks on Reeds Lake, East Grand Rapids, Michigan

Reeds on Hall Lake, Yankee Springs, Michigan

Moon setting on the Burfiend Farm, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Sunrise on a frozen Narada Lake, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Sand Dunes, Silver Lake State Park, Mears, Michigan

Ghost Forest, Silver Lake State Park, Mears, Michigan

Favorite photos of 2019

Published on December 25, 2019July 19, 2023 by rdmegr

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.)