The Eye of the Beholder

THE LONG, HARD WINTER OF 2014!

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY--Next to Landscape photography, I love taking pictures of the moon. I have a special adapter for my telescope that fits my Canon. Hopefully this summer I'll learn how to set the GPS on my telescope so I can actually capture Saturn and some deep space nebulae. Some of these pictures were from the recent Blood Moon (total lunar eclipse); the clouds rolled in, and unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures of the red moon. Still--great shots of the craters and seas.

AUTUMN HARVEST IN THE UPPER PENINSULA--2013

If I had any preconceived notions of the beauty of the Upper Peninsula, they were all about Fall. As Autumn approached, I wanted nothing more than to spend each day driving across the U.P. We took a trip up to the Keeweenaw and Copper Harbor first, thinking that the colors would change first up there (farther north, right?). However, because of the proximity to Lake Superior, the colors at the shoreline were later in developing than in our little town near the mountains. From there, I stayed close to home, exploring all three of our ski mountains, taking hikes through the Ottowa National Forest, attempting to capture the beauty of the Western U.P. autumns that I had heard about for months. This year did not disappoint, and we were rewarded with four weeks of reds, yellows and browns. Then, to my wondrous eyes, I discovered the ostentatious Tamarack trees in early November! These trees are native to the Northern parts of our country, so I had never seen one in fall color. They are one of the few evergreens that shed their needles in the fall. Once again, nature caught me by surprise, teaching me something new. Fall brings dormancy, but nature sure knows how to put on a show one last time before the bleak winter begins.

Spring is Finally here!

Winter 2012-13 in the Upper Peninsula---227 total inches for the year!

The Beauty of Our Country

When I was a child, my dad loved to take road trips. Dad was an avid amateur photographer, and his love of landscapes and the natural wonders of our country often took us to some of the most beautiful places in America. By the time I graduated from high school, we had drove through 26 states, stopping in each one to look at the beauty all around us. Ever since I was a child, my goal has been to travel to every state of the union and experience the wonders of our vast world. As a parent (and an avid amateur photographer like my dad), I strive to take my children on vacations by car....the only way to see the beauty of our country is to drive through it. This website is dedicated to the many hours we spent on the road, stopping to take beautiful landscape photographs along the way. Our country, so vast and everchanging, never ceases to amaze me as I explore it state by state.

It's Been said in many ways...

Conglomerate Falls in Winter--The downflow--Dec. 2012

1588--Joh Lyly--Euphues and his England--
    "...as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote."

1741--Ben Franklin--Poor Richard's Almanac
     "Beauty, like supreme dominion is but supported by opinion."

1878--Margaret Wolfe Hungeford--Molly Bawn--
     "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder."

The downflow from Conglomerate Falls....Taken in the Fall of 2012 at Ottawa National Park, Ironwood, Michigan.

Pyramid Point near Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Taken August 2012.

"Kindness is like snow, it beautifies everything it covers."--Kahlil Gibron, poet.

On the National Scenic Byway...You can see the strange cloud cover over the Lake...we had a Lake Effect snowstorm last night dropping 6 inches with more to come. Taken Jan. 24, 2013

Our Friends in the woods