After the Leaves Leave

This part of the year is often overlooked in the succession of seasons — after the colors and before the snow. For me, it’s an exciting time -- simply because it is often overlooked. The beauty is there -- it’s just in places that we don’t often look. Since the leaves are gone the sun can filter down to the forest floor. Since we’re getting close to the shortest day of the year, the sun is lower in the sky and the shadows are long. The leaves have made a wonderful carpet on the floor. The sky can be very dramatic as the cold fronts push through. Most times when I head to the beach there is no one else around — I enjoy the solitude. The beach is also devoid of footprints and evidence of other human activity — that’s one thing about the beach — the wind and waves erase the slate very quickly. On top of everything, my schedule seems to loosen up a bit so the opportunity to get out and collect a few images is more frequent.Yes, there are probably a few more grey days than other times of the year --but “soft light” is an advantage in some cases.
So there’s a lot to love about late fall. Greet each other with a warm hug to help take away the chill and let your smiles be the sunshine.

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.

Vertical Flow

Lately I've been getting these visions in the middle of the night. My brain starts sorting through a catalog of images from recent shoots and somehow a connection is made between images. As some of you may know or have figured out, many of my pieces are like weavings — they are multiple images that are worked together to form a new image.
I was going through some of my Porcupine Mountain images earlier in the day and there was one image that held my interest, but somehow the story wasn't complete. I think it was at about 2 a.m. the next morning that my brain connected an additional image. YES — that was the one that finished the story of the Big Union River on a stormy day. Rain was pelting the surface of the river — kicking up little fountains. The rising waters were picking leaves off the river's edge and carrying them downstream, and the wind was twisting the maples along the banks.
The one element of the image that's a little weird is that the tapestry is vertical but the motion is horizontal. I'm hoping viewer's imaginations can carry them downstream.

Blessings in the new year!

Time

Seems like the last couple weeks have been crazy busy. When I reviewed the images I was putting together from my Porkies AIR I decided that the old web site that I had wasn't going to cut it anymore. So any spare time I had I worked on sorting through images of the last few years and selected the best to include in a new web site. What a huge job! Because I would rather be out there taking pics instead of creating web pages I decided to move my site to a "pre-packaged" web service that lets you just plug your photos into their web site templates. No, I don't like the lack of flexibility in the site's design, but it's just one of those compromises in life.
So if you were waiting for more porkies pics — thanks for your patience. At left is an underwater pic (Union River) of a poplar leaf that was going with the flow — not worried about time.
As Kermit the Frog once said, "Time is fun when your having flies." So I won't sit here and keep on bemoaning my lack of time — I'll just keep it fun by having flies. Do you think making and eating a shoofly pie counts as "having flies?"
Crumb Crust:
2 deep dish pie shells, unbaked
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 pinch of salt
Filling:
2 cups hot water
1 cup mild molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Directions:
1. Combine all crumb ingredients and mix until ataining even consistency.
2. To make the filling take a different bowl, combine the hot water, molasses and brown sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add the egg, flour and baking soda.
3. Pour 1/2" filling into a pie shell and cover with crumbs. Continue to alternate between filling and crumbs until pie shell is full.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 45-60 minutes until golden-brown. Insert a toothpick and when it comes out clean, remove from oven.

Weather the Weather

I've been on the road for the last three weeks. First, I went to the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park as Artist in Residence and with a quick turn around headed to Sleeping Bear Dunes to serve as a workshop presenter and field trip leader for a NANPA (North American Nature Photographers Association) event. At both locations I had to contend with some pretty "rough" weather. Wind, cold, and rain seemed to be a forecast staple. I'll admit that it wasn't always easy to get out of bed at 6 am to go collect images, but I reassured myself that no matter what the weather I would get good shots.
Necessity is the mother of invention — right? And likewise, a challenge is the mother of creativity. The weather forced me to think differently about what I was shooting — a good thing. And the Porcupines had been very dry most of the summer so the forests and critters needed the rain — a good thing. Well, I better stop there or I'll sound like a positive think guru. Getting real — the weather was tough to endure at times, and I did ask why me, why now? But it was part of a plan and I've learned to be humble and accept that plan, whether I understand it or not.

Showers of blessings

Bob

Stripped Away

There are few leaves left on the trees here in Petoskey. A stiff northern wind has made sure of that. For many, it is a depressing time of the year. The colors are gone and the snow has yet to brighten the landscape. And I have to admit that I end up spending more time indoors than is typical — a good time to catch up on my blog.
But I do relish a weather challenge and Sunday afternoon was perfect — rain, hail, thunder, lightening, and occasionally the sun broke through. I headed just a mile down the road to a nature conservancy. Deep into the woods, the trail became a boardwalk as it crossed soft ground near a stream. Plastered to the walk were leaves in various patterns. Most folks would overlook them but I enjoyed the intensity of the wet, earthy, colors and the simplicity of their interaction on the easel of the boardwalk. As I worked on my images Sunday evening I was reminded of a story my pastor had used the previous Sunday. He talked about the experiences of a family in German occupied Netherlands in WW2. Their incredible story was made known through a book written by Corrie ten Boom called The Hiding Place. Corrie and most of her family ended up spending time in German concentration camps for being part of the underground and hiding Jews in their home. Four of the ten Booms died in the camps but Corrie survived. As you can imagine her return home at the war's end was bittersweet — very happy to be home but missing her family. One would think that on looking back at her time in the camps Corrie would have nothing but feelings of horror and despair but that was not the case. There was a part of her experience in the camps that she actually missed. In the camps, life was minimal — barely enough of the essentials to survive. But in that place where life was stripped down to almost nothing, there was a moment by moment reliance on God. The spiritual life in the camp was very strong.
So now, when I see a bare tree and a few decaying leaves on the ground I think of what is really important in life — certainly not my things — not even my camera or computer :) — it's my walk with my Savior and my God.

Alligator Hill

I was able to stop at Sleeping Bear on my way back from downstate on Saturday. It was your typical change-in-seasons day in Michigan — a driving rain one minute — a burst of sunshine the next. I headed down the road to my automatic first stop on any Sleeping Bear visit — Sleeping Bear Point, but halfway there I did an about face and decided that I'd take the stroll up Alligator Hill — something I hadn't done in several years. As I pulled in the trailhead parking lot the clouds parted and I couldn't get on my hike fast enough.
Autumn seems to be the hardest time of year for me to photograph. It's like there is so much going on that it's hard to distill my thoughts about what I'm experiencing. I took lots of pics on my hike but the couple I chose to display here are the most successful at capturing the day.