Summer 2026

I try to take a few trips a year to visit my hometown. Often one of the things I do while I’m there is go out to those places I spent time as a kid and take photos. (Sadly the place has become such a grid-locked tourist trap that it’s nearly impossible to get around for the majority of summmer.)

Ludington State Park

The state park is one of those places I loved as a kid, ignored as a teenager, and then lamented its absence when I moved away as an adult.

I’ve been told before part of being good at photography is about volume, if you get one good photo out of a hundred you’re on the right track and the more you take the more likely you are to get a good photo and therefore learn what it takes from you to produce a good photo. I always like to take pictures of insects (who knows how much longer they’ll be around). That’s true in this case, I was just taking photos of dragonflies and composing them in the way that I think gets good results without realizing I was getting the detail on the wings and the sheen off the sun.

The same happened with this crow. I fired a couple shots as I was walking back to my car, thinking there might be something interesting there but not quite realizing the sunlight was falling on the eye this way.

I had hoped to see some herons. I had bought a new lighter tripod, as my previous one had kicked the bucket, just for occaisons like this.

Photos like this force me to ask the question, “should I get a new camera?” On one hand, I feel I don’t take advantage of all that is available to me with my current camera and I’m not convinced I’m consistently doing a good job with the things I do use. On the other, I’m almost certain I could have gotten something stunning if I had been able to get a closer shot (which I suspect would require a new camera body).

If you wait around long enough you’ll easily encounter the deer. They they tend to be flighty during the tourist season, but in the off-season I’ve practically tripped over them before.

Something similar happened here as with the heron. These shots were pure luck, I was basically in the right place at the right time. But the shutter wasn’t fast enough to get more than a few shots worth keeping.

Arcadia

My brother and sister-in-law recommended I vist Arcadia for their amazing diner, MT Plate. Worth the visit for the diner alone. On the edge of town is a boardwalk through a coastal marsh. Given the opportunity I’ll definetly go back.

Gear

Photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M5II with the Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro and the M.Zuiko Digital 1.4x Teleconverter MC-14. My tripod was the Benro A38FD aluminum monopod and my bag was the Brevite Jumper.

Files were processed with DxO PhotoLab.