Here is a photo I took last fall with my drone from Old Mission Peninsula in northern Michigan. I thought missed the fall colors, but when we got up there it was perfect as you can see.
Mission Point Lighthouse
I took this photo last October during our Michigan trip. You can’t see it from this photo, but Lake Michigan is just over the white fence. Anyway, this is a great spot and has some nice hiking trails through the forest and along the shore.
Michigan Autumn
I took this photo last fall during our Michigan wine trail trip. We experienced great fall colors while we were there. This cool little road is actually the exit off one of the vineyards. So many great wineries in the Traverse City area.
Chateau Chantel By Air
Here is a photo from a long, long time ago (last October….COVID time is like dog time). I took this while traveling in Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City Michigan. There are a ton of vineyards, distilleries and places that make hard cider in this area. Not to mention, it is just beautiful…rolling hills, numerous peninsulas, Lake Michigan as the backdrop, fall color and much more. It was great getting back up there, since it’s probably been over 10 years since our last visit. Much too long.
I took this photo looking down on the Chateau Chantel vineyard/winery. They have an amazing spot, and it is worth a stop. Plus, the wine is great as well.
Loon Song Covered Bridge
Long before our recent trip to Michigan, I had found a photo of this covered bridge by northern Michigan photographer @snaphappymichigan (Heather Higham). Per my normal process, I saved the photo and cataloged it as a potential future destination…. I do this all the time when I find a unique photography spots around the world. I usually find these while scrolling through social media sites or sometimes by conducting a specific Google search. The result is a database of thousands of sample photos from hundreds of locations world-wide. That means that when I’m heading to a specific location, I can go to my database and have locations ready queued up to go explore. Often, I want to capture a photo similar to the sample photo I found from another photographer, but most often it just gives me an idea of the location allowing me to explore it looking for my own angle and perspective at a site I might otherwise never know about.
About a week before we left for this trip, my friend Karalee Kowatz shared the same photo by Heather Higham that I had saved over a year ago. Karalee has a habit of finding and sharing the best photographs from around the world on FB. So below you can see Heather’s photo and my version which I took this week.
To view a larger version, click HERE
Heather’s photo
Tunnel of Trees
MJ and I are supposed to be in Bermuda…..but COVID messed that up, like it messed up all of 2020. So, we decided to get away regardless…. Pure Michigan it is!! We traveled the Lake Michigan coast. This photo is from inside the Tunnel of Trees which is north of Harbor Springs.
To view a larger version, click HERE
Fall On The Trail
MJ and I went for a little hike on the Montour Trail in Washington County last weekend. I dragged my camera along, because if I didn’t there would have been an amazing shot to take without a camera. So, I carried it the entire walk and took a grand total of one photo and here it is…….
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Glade Creek Grist Mill
I doubt I’ll get out this fall color season to take many photos, so here is one I took in the past at Babcock State Park in WV.
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Pripyat Trucks
I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you. I have a few things going on, but what’s new. Today’s post is a photo I took of these broken-down trucks in Pripyat Ukraine near Chernobyl.
To view a larger version, click HERE
Pripyat Kids Camp
During our trip to Chernobyl, we got a chance to visit this children’s summer camp outside of Pripyat in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Like everything in the Zone, mother nature is taking over. There is something beautiful about this scene, in a sad way.
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Serenity
As weird as this sounds, I can’t remember where I took this photo. It is either Rickets Glen State Park in central Pennsylvania or it is from Watkins Glen State Park in the State of New York. I was taking water fall photos in both places the same weekend and I’ve lost track. How sad is that??? My memory is getting really bad.
To view a larger version, click HERE
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Grist Mill
Today’s picture is of the Grist Mill in Babcock State Park in West Virginia. We planned this perfectly to capture the fall color change at this spot and of course, it didn’t work out. As you can see, the color was changing, but we missed the peak fall foliage color.
To view a larger version, click HERE
Don’t forget to check out my photo galleries. I recently updated them.
31st Street Bridge
I need to get out and take some more Pittsburgh photos soon. Believe or not, I’m running out of photos to process and post from my great city. I took this photo last fall on a photo walk with Brad and Dave. I didn’t get a ton of wonderful photos that night, but I had a good time. This one was taken just past sunset.
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Don’t forget to check out my photo galleries. I recently updated them.
Sunset in Pittsburgh
Valley Brook Country Club
Here is another photo from my photo shoot at the beautiful Valley Brook Country Club. I was honored to be approached by them to photograph their new green, which they’ll open next year. I thought this photo did a good job of capturing this amazing spot.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.
Red Hole #3
Tonight I got the opportunity to photography the brand new Red Hole #3 at Valley Brook Country Club. It’s so new that it won’t even be open until spring of 2017. As you can see, it is a beautiful setting. What a great opportunity, wonderful location and beautiful photo!!
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Fall Color In Pittsburgh
Back in October, Brad, Blair and I did some “roof topping” photography. Jay provided the tip and we took advantage of the information to gain access to a great spot in downtown Pittsburgh looking down on the city.
As you can see, the fall color was still in effect. On top of that, it was getting very dark and I used a ND filter, which means I needed a long exposure. The long exposure created a dreamy sky, smooth river, and light trails from the moving vehicles.
This was an amazing night and it’s what I love about the fall season. Warm evenings, wonderful colors and just that relaxing feeling. Do you like fall? If so, why?
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Skogafoss, Iceland
Hello. I hope you’re having a great Tuesday. Tonight I have an old photo for you, with a new twist. Meaning, I loved this photo when I took it in 2013 and processed it then. So I reprocessed it again this week and am sharing it again with my latest and current processing techniques. I hope you like it as much as I do.
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Ricketts Glen State Park
Last October on the way to my Canada scuba diving trip, I stopped by this excellent Pennsylvania state park. This is one of over 30 waterfalls greater then ten feet tall on a three-mile loop hike.
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Watkins Glenn 2
Very busy week at work this week. So I am posting this picture from my hike at Watkins Glenn in September. That’s it….. Have a great week.
HDR Final Image
Here is a “behind the lens” picture of this setting. You can see my camera setup for the photo above.
Watkins Glen State Park
As you’ve probably noticed, I was absent for the last week or so. I was traveling and didn’t have great Internet access (not to mention, I was just busy having fun). I started out last weekend by jumping from one state park to another. I started by going to Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania and then went to a few others in New York State on my way to Canada. Visiting these parks wasn’t planned, but I realized I had some free time to myself before I had to be in Canada, so I took advantage of it. One of the parks I visited in NY was Watkins Glen State Park.
This was my first visit to the Finger Lakes area and I have to admit it is wonderful. My friend and mentor (Mary Ann Eldred) tried to talk me into visiting this area years ago. She claimed it was nice. Like all her other advice over the years, she was completely accurate. Watkins Glen State Park has a wonderful trail through the gorge taking you past a few wonderful spots like the one in this picture. I started at the bottom and walked up all 800+ steps.
Combined, I think I hiked around 15 miles in those two days. That doesn’t seem like much, but when you consider the ups and downs of the gorge trails in the foothills of Appalachian Mountains…15 miles was a lot.
Anyway, at the end of Monday, I ended my travels in Brockville Canada…by the way, this area along the St. Lawrence River was beautiful as well. Just amazing views everywhere we went. I met up with some diving friends from Michigan and we spent the rest of the week shipwreck scuba diving in Lake Ontario and in the St. Lawrence River. Most of the dives were in the river. This is difficult diving… the best way I can describe it would be to compare it to white water rafting…. Except we were deep underwater, it was dark, you couldn’t see (low visibility, maybe 15 feet if we were lucky) and the objects (like boulders the size of trucks) come at you very fast as the current pushes you downstream really really fast. I had a great time, but this type of scuba diving isn’t for the faint of heart.
The trip provided some heart pounding activities, beautiful locations, wonderful story telling, good food and lots of laughs. Big thanks to Steve, Scott, Kyle, Larry and Tom for making the week lots of fun.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.