Detroit

I had to go over to the Canadian side to get this vantage point of Detroit. Silly me, I had never really looked up Detroit on a map. I knew it was in Michigan, but I didn't realize it was right on the border with Canada.  

We spent part of two days driving around Detroit, only seeing a small spectrum of the big metropolitan area.  We drove through one area where there were buildings and houses that had burned, buildings that were boarded up & unused and then just a few blocks later we were in Grosse Point, a very wealthy lakeside community.  What a contrast! 

Downtown Detroit is also full of contrasts - beautiful, new buildings, the Detroit People Mover, and other older buildings empty.  I know that the economy in Detroit is especially bad right now, but many of the buildings we saw throughout the Detroit area that are empty, unused, decaying, show signs that they have not been used in many years.  It is a town of many eras - and it made me wish I had seen it when some of those older buildings were new and occupied. 

Belle Isle Park is also lovely, sitting on the American side of the Detroit River - ponds, fountains, zoos, etc.  We were there when they were doing the Breast Cancer Walk.  But it also has a neglected feel. 

Here are some snapshots from driving around:

Lampstand decorations:

 

The story behind the plastic bags:

 A building I thought was beautiful as we drove by:

 

These have seen better days:

 

 The People Mover just circles downtown. It looks like it would be fun to ride:

Seney National Wildlife Refuge

We've been fortunate to visit Seney National Wildlife Refuge several times.  Our first visit was in September 2003. We knew it was going to be a great place when we saw sandhill cranes foraging right by the entry sign.  We were thrilled to see bald eagles, trumpeter swans, northern shovelers, loons, green winged teals, glossy ibis, American bitterns, beaver, and muskrats, etc.  We've also learned that by October, most of the birds have already flown south.

But we were "in the neighborhood" and couldn't resist making one loop through the auto trail.  There were still trumpeter swans, a pied bill grebe, assorted sparrows.  The ranger told me that river otters had been spotted - we didn't see those.

But even with most of the birds gone, Seney is still a beautiful place, especially at sunrise or sunset. The clouds were especially lovely this evening.

I never tire of seeing the subtle colors God paints in the sky - unique every day.

Autumn Impressions

I don't have time to do much of a blog tonight - I've got to get up early to do sunrise at a cypress swamp in the morning. But . . . here is another of my "creative" images. I have not figured out a catchy name for them, yet. Hope you enjoy!

Presque Isle River - at the Isle

The next day I came back to the Presque Isle. I started at the Island on the bridge. The bridge is a suspension, wooden bridge. Anytime you walk on it, it sways both up and down and a little to the side. As a photographer, I've learned a lot of patience. Sometimes it is waiting for the optimum light as a cloud passes over. This time it was timing my shots when no one was walking on the bridge.

I spent a lot of time here - I wanted to get the big picture shot:



This is actually a large, flowing area, one of the channels around the island. I shot that one with my 28-105mm landscape lens. While it does show the big picture, it also makes this large powerful river look small. Even the large trees in the background don't give a good feel for the size.

I also wanted to find the smaller, more intimate looks.

I pulled out my 100-400mm lens to get a better shot of the rapids at the top of the first image. This is up at the top, you can barely see it in the "big picture."



I changed location on the bridge and was fascinated with the way the river water and the rocks had worn jig-saw puzzle shapes into the bedrock.



I was also looking for places where I could get both the stream action and the hint of the fall colors:



I found this composition illustrated the flowing lines and I still got a fall leaf:



This last shot is a really close up, almost a macro shot:




I won't decide which are my best images from this area until I get home. I'll be looking for which images have all the leaves sharp, rather than the motion blur that occurs as a gentle breeze comes through. I also shot for HDR (high dynamic range) which lets me get good exposures for the brightest areas and the shadowed parts.

Presque Isle River

One of my favorite areas in the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the Presque Isle River. When we were here before I had hiked the lower stretches of the trail along it. This trip I decided to hike part of the upper portion. I had Henry drop me off by the top fall and I was going to meet him down at the picnic area.

I really enjoyed most of the walk. I got a good look at the Nawadaha Falls which was an easy walk from the upper parking lot, but there were too many trees and tree trunks in the way to get a good photo. I started down the trail. I enjoyed watching flocks of small birds dart from the trail up into the trees as I approached. The forest was beautiful. The trail led me high above the river. Most of the trail wasn't bad, but first I came up on a stretch where I ended up laying my tripod down and using hands and knees to get up. Then the trail had a few more ups and downs. I was doing OK. And then . . . right before I got to the much easier boardwalk . . . I looked down on . . . this:




In general, I go uphill much easier than downhill. Yes, I may get winded, but my footing is much more steady and sure going uphill. Perhaps it is because when you are going up if you fall, you are likely to fall forward with not such a great distance to go or that you can catch yourself with your hands. It might be that my center of gravity is more balanced when I'm going uphill. Whatever the reason, I don't trust myself going downhill and take it very cautiously. So when I looked at that stretch from above, I knew I was in trouble. I didn't take long to decide that going down sitting down was the best course of action. And, it went pretty well. But when I got to the bottom, I realized that I had somehow lost the water bottle from my pocket as well as a small amount of money. There was no way I was going back to the top for that.

Fortunately, another family came along. I casually mentioned that there was an unopened water bottle and some money up there. A very nice young man soon reappeared with my lost possessions. Last time I was at that spot, someone else rescued my lens cap that had fallen where I did not have the agility to rescue it. Seems like I need to be more careful at that location since I keep losing things here. But so far, they haven't stayed lost.

As I was taking my last looks before heading on down the boardwalk, I noticed as sign that warned: Steep and rough terrain ahead! Now they tell me!

The rest of the walk that evening was beautiful. Here are two of the shots I took. I made it back to the car and Henry about ten minutes after sunset, before it got to dark to see the path out of the forest.




The fall colors were gorgeous!

Michigan's Fall Colors

We spent several days driving around the Upper Peninsula looking for fall colors. We were lucky to catch them so close to their peak. I love the bright, deep reds, the brilliant yellows . . .

Manistique River

Northland Outfitters in Germfask is one of our favorite places to stay in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We've been there twice before in our RV. This year we didn't bring the RV so we stayed in one of the camper cabins. The view of the Manistique River is just gorgeous. We had a nice cloudy day, so I pulled out camera and tripod.

I was shooting with my standard lens, the 28-105mm Canon L lens. When I looked at the shots that night, I was not too happy. This was just not a good representation of what I was seeing with my eyes.



So I began to play with it . . .

The first step . . . cropping it down.



I've been playing with some programs from Topaz labs - Topaz Adjust and Topaz Vivacity. For this one I used the Simplify portion of Topaz Adjust and used the sharpen with iterations in Topaz Vivacity to create this finished piece:



Using what I learned from the crop of the photo, I went out the next day with my 100-400mm Canon lens to get the photo I wanted at full resolution: