South Haven Sunset

South Haven is a charming resort community located in the Southwest Michigan. People flock to South Haven in the summer to enjoy the lake, South Haven's beautiful beaches and this: the setting sun. We live 7 miles from South Haven and one afternoon, the cloud conditions looked like great sunset was in the making. I grabbed my camera and took this photograph of the lighthouse marking the entrance to the South. Haven harbor. I never tire of seeing a beautiful sunset like this one.

Last November in Sedona, we were surrounded by massive monuments of stone. Everywhere you looked, you saw these mountain-heads:  red, orange and brown. On a hike among these towers, I saw a tree turned golden by the autumn.  I tried to capture the scene.  But when I processed the photo, I found that the colorful rocks distracted from the golden tree. So I made the rocks black and white, giving center stage to the golden tree.

Holland State Park on the shore of Lake Michigan provides about as much sand and shoreline Lake Michigan beauty as anyone could ask.  At the entrance to the harbor is a large lighthouse structure they call “Big Red“. One summer day I captured Big Red in its  majesty.  I substituted a beautiful sunset I had taken previously for the sky. The reddish gold sky compliments Big Red, a welcome landmark for boaters coming home from the lake.

Last fall we drove across the mighty Mackinac Bridge to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  We continued north to Munising, Michigan located on the southern end of Lake Superior. There I discovered a gentle little waterfall surrounded by a natural bouquet of yellow flowers. The sound of the water falling to the rocks below and gurgling down the creek provided a peaceful place to spend awhile.

There is a lovely little church on Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.  I actually took this photograph of it in the day time.  But Lake Tekapo is located in one of the “dark areas“ of the world. There is an observatory nearby and the stars and moon are dazzling on a clear night.   I added the stars and moon from our summer residence in Michigan which is equally dark so I could paint this picture of the Church of the Good Shepherd after dark.

A couple of years ago, as autumn approached, I drove past fields near our Southern Michigan home, admiring the bales of hay that were ready for storage.  I found a field of them and stopped my car by the side of the field to set up my camera on my tripod.  As I was taking the picture, a truck with a large trailer drove off the road and onto the field next to me. I turned and smiled at the farmer saying “I hope you won’t take these bales away until I finish taking a picture.“ He was not amused. He scolded me and said “do I put up a tent in your yard“? I was tempted to make a smart aleck remark back to him until I noticed the 12 gauge shotgun on the rack in his truck.  Seeing that, I smiled and grabbed my tripod saying “thank you, I’m done here.“  After I finished the image I thought of taking a framed copy to his door as a peace offering.  But, remembering that shotgun, I thought the better of it.

Bryce Canyon is such an amazing concentration of cathedral like shafts. Pillars of color that amaze the eyes. Sometimes scenes like these are hard to capture because they are so busy. I was lucky enough to find a long branch with leaves back enough to frame this view of nature’s most artistic works.

Point Betsie is located high on the Michigan mitten. It sticks out into lake Michigan far enough that there is a lighthouse there to keep boats from coming too close to the mainland. I drove up there last summer in search of photos and took this picture of the lighthouse. When I took the picture, I lined up the lighthouse too far to the side of the pebbles. Photoshop to the rescue: I was able to cut out the lighthouse and surrounding foliage and simply move them further into the photograph so that it was in alignment with all those chunky little pebbles.

Landscapes are my main passion. But when the opportunity presents itself, I am up for just about anything. We were on the island of Kawai in March 2019. Our house was right in Hanalua Bay, the famous surf break.  Action photography is a hit or miss affair, and I certainly hit it with this one. My camera takes multiple exposures about every half second when I sent it to. I followed this surfer as he turned on the wave and went airborne. There wasn’t much I had to do with this lucky catch after I took it except to crop it and admire it.

I’ve been to a lot of beautiful rock piles over the years, but nothing compares to Bryce Canyon. The uniformity of the shapes, the color variations: Pillars of time.  This little tree helped establish the perspective and broke up the orange surroundings. There’s very little I needed to do after taking this image. Bryce Canyon speaks for itself.

We live in rural Michigan in the summer. Nearby is a fresh produce market. As we drove by it one night I was impressed at the sight: no street lights and the nightlights on the store made a pleasing Image. I came back to the site several times trying to capture what I had seen.  I wound up with several images, one of the star filled sky, one of the store and one of the rest of the area which was in near darkens. Combined, they make a reproduction of  the image I saw as I drove through the night.

In the Straits of Mackinac which separates the main peninsula of Michigan from its upper Peninsula and from Canada, there is a small island: Mackinac Island (pronounced "Mackinaw Island". ) It is only 8 miles around.  A wonderful summer vacation spot only reachable by boat.  No cars allowed.  This picture is of the entrance to Mackinac Island. The lighthouse in the distance is on the waterway side of the harbor entrance. The beacon in the foreground is on the inside. I added color to the sky and took some moss and discoloring off The rocks. Our family spent a few weeks every summer on Mackinac Island. This image is summer itself.

This shot was taken at Death Valley National Park last December. The golden bolder was unusual and fetching. It and the golden formation behind it lead the eye deeper into the picture. That is not a lake in the distance.  It is dried salt.  The sky had become hazy overcast when I got there.  I replaced it with a more friendly looking sky.  I also isolated the highlights on the bolder and ground and brightened them to add dimension to the image.

A couple of years ago we toured scenic New Zealand. This photo is of a spectacular waterfall on Wanaca Sound. The cruise we took on the Sound was amazing and capturing this beautiful scene was certainly a part of it.

My buddy Keegan and I were playing golf one day. He knows that I like taking photographs of striking scenes. We went around a large sand waste area. Keegan pointed to a strange gnarly looking little tree that was trying to survive in a bed of sand.  Keegan said “why don’t you take a picture of that“, pointing to the little tree. Inspired by the image of the tree, I brought my camera on the next round of golf. I walked around the tree and found an angle of it that I liked and took the picture.  In post processing with Photoshop, I gave it a surreal look that I think presents it well.   An artistic little tree named after Keegan.