Welcome to My Michigan (The Mitten)
I took a fifteen year break from photography to spend as much time as possible with my family. Now that the kids are out of school and I find myself with more free time I have decided to join the digital age and pick up where I left off.
For me photography is a labor of love. It helps me see everything in a new light and a new way. Everyday events become forever memories. Insects, flowers, animals and birds become magical and mystical. My eyes see a whole new world around me, sometimes alien but always beautiful. This is what I love to do, winter, spring, summer and fall, immersed in the great out of doors with a camera in my hand.
Come and join me on my expeditions. And just maybe, like many others, you will come away "Smitten by the Mitten".
Thank you for stopping by.
Jim
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Mud Lake & Black River Colors
Last weekend the fall colors were just starting to saturate the landscape.
Mud Lake
The Black River.
And in IR
City Night
I'm back home and decided to try a night sky shot from the city. I was hoping for some color from northern lights, but no luck. The thin cloud cover adds some interest and reflects the city light. How many constellations can you see?
Native American Love Flute
As the story was told to me (condensed version), there lived a young man who was very shy. He was brave in battle but too shy to speak to the one he loved. One day in despair he left camp and wandered alone. Not knowing why, he shot an arrow into the sky and to his amazement it stayed aloft and led him to a stream where he slept that night. On the fourth day he slept at the edge of a forest. In a half-dream state two Elk men came to him "We have come to give you this flute. It is made from the wood of the cedar and Woodpecker made the finger holes. All the birds and animals helped to make this flute, and their voices sing within it. When you play this flute for the girl you love, all out voices sing with you." When he awoke the Elk men were gone but the flute remained.
The young man set off towards home. For four days he walked, playing his flute along the way, imitating the sounds of the animals and birds with his music. On the forth day he reached the hill above his camp and paused there to play his flute. The beautiful music he made carried into the camp. The girl that he loved knew that the music spoke straight to her heart. She left her tipi and joined the young man on the hill. She listened to the words of love that his music spoke more eloquently than his voice could express. "I love you. I love you."
Vincent
Starry
Starry Night
Paint your palette blue and grey...
Don McClean
Lake houses on the shore of Lake Huron.
And a portrait view.
It's a Good Day!
I never get tired of these sunrises over Lake Huron. Chilly start, but It looks like another beautiful day!
Weekend Four
It was a good weekend. I saw four new birds.
Snow Goose and Ross's Goose.
Ross's Goose.
Golden Plover.
Northern Harrier.
Simple Wish
... loves me!
It's the first day of fall. The flowers won't be around much longer, so I was out and about capturing a few late season bloomers. When I saw this sunflower I immediately thought of the "loves me, loves me not" saying.
Focus Stacking
I have been wanting to try focus stacking for some time now. Focus stacking is a digital image processing technique which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field (DOF) than any of the individual source image. In this photo I have stacked 8 images.
This is what a single unstacked image looks like for comparison. Sorry that I could not get the colors to match up well, but I think that the difference in DOF is quit evident.
Too Cold to Move
Today I found this Dragonfly hanging out on a Sunflower trying to warm up. It was a very dreary "Fallish" day.
Here is a close up of the eyes. It is interesting how each compound eye is bi-lobed.
Caspian Tern
Today I went kayaking on the Kalamazoo River just upstream from Saugatuck. I was there with my wife, sister and niece. We put in at New Richmond Bridge Park and took out at Wades Bayou. This is a lovely stretch of river. It is mostly wetland/marsh with a lot of waterfowl and shore birds. This Caspian Tern caught my eye. It is a very beautiful bird.
Motion
This is a falling Maple seed, sometimes called a whirlybird or helicopter seed. Getting a photograph of one of these seeds falling to the ground has proved to be a daunting task. This is the best I could do today.
Stained Glass Bottles
The photo of orchids in bottles (see August 24 entry) prompted me to get out some of my antique bottles and see if I could come up with something creative. I found a nice spot where there were some Black-eyed Susans behind a split rail fence.
