Dunes and Blue Water
Dunes and Blue Water
Wispy dusk clouds over beach grass
Dune grass at sunset from dunes
Lake Michigan shoreline detail
Glen Haven Canning Company building
Life Saving Station - Glen Haven
View of Pyramid Point from Sleeping Bear
Wispy clouds over dune grass
Sparkly water
Moon and Dune Grass
Old weathered stump
Detail of Beach Grass
A slow vertical pan through a northern hardwoods stand at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore dissolves individual sugar maples and beeches into ribbons of color — dark trunks anchoring a luminous field of gold, amber, and burnt orange. The intentional camera movement strips away the literal forest and leaves behind the feeling of standing inside peak autumn, surrounded by warmth on all sides. Captured on an October afternoon in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, when the hardwoods were at their most extravagant.
An extreme close-up of a tropical water lily transforms flower into architecture — concentric rings of magenta carpels, golden-tipped stamens, and vivid yellow inner petals radiating outward with fractal-like complexity. The bold complementary contrast between purple and yellow creates an almost abstract composition that rewards prolonged examination, each layer unfolding into the next. A macro lens collapses the distance between viewer and subject until the familiar becomes something alien and intricate.
The iconic Frankfort Fish mural on the side of the Frankfort Tackle Box says it all for the fishermen who love this town.
Autumn ignites the hardwoods atop the sandstone cliffs at Grand Portal Point, where Lake Superior's clear water shifts from turquoise to deep blue. The natural arch in the cliff face, carved by centuries of wave action, frames a stretch of the Pictured Rocks shoreline along the North Country Trail.
A long exposure at Platte River Point captures the night sky over Lake Michigan, the last warm glow of twilight still clinging to the horizon as wisps of high cloud catch the light. The still water holds a near-perfect mirror, doubling the stars and the fading band of color along the distant Sleeping Bear shoreline.
An intense red and magenta aurora floods the sky above Point Betsie Lighthouse during the geomagnetic storm of August 12, 2024. Shot from a low angle at the base of the tower, the beacon's white light cuts through a corona of overhead aurora pillars reaching across the stars near Frankfort, Michigan.
A path winds through dune grass toward the calm waters of Platte Bay, where the perched dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore rise along the distant shore. Photographed in the soft minutes before sunset, the pastel sky and still lake hold the quiet of a July evening on the Lake Michigan coast.
The setting sun threads a brilliant starburst through the natural arch of a weathered driftwood stump on the beach at Platte Bay, within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Stopped down to a small aperture, the last light of a July evening rakes across the sculpted, sun-bleached woodgrain while the calm water of Lake Michigan stretches to Sleeping Bear dune on the horizon.
The Frankfort North Breakwater Light stands as a small silhouette on the horizon as seen from the shoreline near Arcadia. The August sun settles below a band of amber sky while a long exposure smooths the water into broad blue bands, with the Frankfort and Elberta bluffs anchor the frame.
Late-day sun breaks beneath a ceiling of broken clouds along the Lake Michigan shoreline at Arcadia, throwing a hard sunstar and long rays across the water. A slow shutter speed softens the incoming surf into pale ribbons of foam on the sand.
The sun drops toward the horizon over Lake Michigan at Point Betsie, its light tracing the waves and the cobbled shoreline.
The rusted steel sheet pile remnants — bolts, beams, and weathered I-beams — mark the spot for a twilight shot. A long exposure smooths Lake Michigan to glass under the last band of orange afterglow, half an hour after sunset.
A red and gold aurora burns low over South Manitou Island and Empire Bluff from Esch Road Beach in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, its color pooling in the still water of Otter Creek where it meets the sand. Above, the Milky Way arcs through a sky dense with stars, with the smudge of the Andromeda Galaxy visible high overhead. Captured in the early hours of a late-September night during a strong geomagnetic display.
Weathered wooden pilings stand in rows against the still surface of Lake Superior near Crisp Point, remnants of a structure long surrendered to water and time. A 30-second exposure smooths the lake to glass, isolating the pilings as the only disruption across the frame — a nearer row rising from the foreground, a second row dissolving into the middle distance.
Sometimes when photographing a sunrise, you have to look behind you to see the shot! While photographing nearby on the Crystal Lake shoreline at the Congregational Summer Assembly I noticed that the sky and clouds to the West were really stunning in the light of the rising sun. I made my way over to the Lake Michigan beach at the CSA to see if I could get a good image and found this amazing driftwood log, which made the perfect foreground. This image evokes in me the calm and serenity I feel when walking the shoreline on a beautiful day and I hope it does the same for you.
The full moon rises over Elberta Beach and Lake Michigan as visitors gather around beach fires making summer memories.