The Michigan Hurricane

Had some interesting days last week here in Michigan. Several people I talked to said that the only other day that they experienced winds that strong was on November 10, 1975 — the day the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. I had to get out a couple times and experience it myself. There was an interesting prelude to the storm as alternating "waves" of rain and wind and sunny skies passed through. The most striking moment was when a beautiful double rainbow formed as a storm passed while I was at the state park in Petoskey — late afternoon.
I decided to head down to The Charlevoix area and visited the beaches at Fisherman's Island and Norwood. Norwood was a last minute alternate as I found that the road to Fisherman's was blocked due to a power line down. At the Norwood beach I was struck by the rainbows formed in the blowing spray from the waves (see below). Eventually I was able to get into Fisherman's Island where the show was all about the the giant plumes of spray kicked up as the waves crested. The island, a natural barrier that juts out into the lake, causes the wave action to curl around it so on the north side of the island the waves approach the beach heading south — directly into the wind in this case. Just as the waves would crest the wind gust would blow the wave backward in large arcs. With the background of late autumn trees on the island it presented a wonderful place for picture making.
Hope you enjoy these images from the Michigan Hurricane.

Sky Islands

Returned from Green Valley (just South of Tucson Arizona) last week . Really enjoyed visiting with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law — great people and gracious hosts. It was a visit where we just kicked back and relaxed. The only thing on my agenda was to do a workshop at the Green Valley Camera Club, and that was really a pleasure because I met all sorts of enthusiastic photographers who shared their experiences and encouraged me in my work as an artist. If you’re into photography and looking for a great place to ride out the winter — Green Valley is the place. They have a fantasstic photo club with great facilities (large computer lab and matting and framing facilities) and lots of field trips.
My lovely wife and I did get away for one day trip that included Kirtchner Caverns and Chiricahua National monument. Unfortunately, you can’t take a camera into the caverns, but experiencing the cavern’s forms and textures is inspiring and well worth it.
Chiricahua was beautiful. The National Monument is refered to as a sky island — a place where a series of mountainous peaks rise from the Arizona flatlands. The distinguishing feature of this region are the stone columns or hoodoos that appear to be the ruins of some great lost civilization but are only the result of the forces of nature. We spent too little time there to really get any images that are a meaningful representation of the area but we did sneak in a short hike that we enjoyed thoroughly and I’ll share a couple images with you here.

Hiking the Natural Bridge trail