F600
F600 – Albion, Michigan
projects
Three Fingered
Three Fingered – Prehistoric Forest, Michigan
Read the write-up on Rediscovering Prehistoric Forest.
Slowly Going Extinct
Slowly Going Extinct – Prehistoric Forest, Irish Hills, Michigan
Read my story on Rediscovering Prehistoric Forest.
Rediscovering Prehistoric Forest
Growing up in Brooklyn, Michigan, just down the road from the Irish Hills, a place like Prehistoric Forest was a once-a-summer destination for my family. In fact, all of the little mini theme parks along US-12 were: Stagecoach Stop, the putt-putt courses, Mystery Hill.
But times change, the interstate redirects the Detroit-to-Chicago traffic, and one by one these little tourist traps are closing shop. Even some of the mini golf courses can’t seem to stay open.
It’s a shame.
There’s no more visual manifestation of the decline of the Irish Hills amusement parks than Prehistoric Forest, though. It sits right along the highway, with the fiberglass dinosaurs crumbling more and more, looking more sad with each passing year.
Closed for more than a decade, even the facade is depressing.
The kicker is if some little kid were to pass by the place and see that mastodon, or the apatosaurus resting its head on a non-native fake palm tree (good engineering!).
“Mom, what’s that? Can we stop?” the kid would say.
“No, honey. The park is closed. All the animals are becoming extinct.”
How sad.
But then this is a story repeated all over the country. The kitsch of these little roadside attractions couldn’t keep up with changing consumer behaviors and patterns. It became a clichéd joke to even think about stopping by the Giant Ball of Twine. So people don’t stop.
Meanwhile, I’ve made it a personal project to document this area and its abandoned tourist traps.
Prehistoric Forest gets brought up a lot around the Jackson area. Rumors of people buying the property, stories about students charged with vandalism – it’s all led to a very touchy and mysterious situation.
Do you go in, risking trespassing charges? Is the owner active in the park’s redevelopment? Have the dinosaurs come to life, devouring intruders? Their cries deafened by the crushing jaws of a Tyrannosaur?
Yes, maybe, and probably not.
I can say the park is in serious disrepair, and I wonder how anyone could hope to restore it to its former glory. The photos I’ve seen had the dinosaurs in passable condition, but when I was there they were seriously degraded. The park is pretty well overgrown.
There’s just not much left.
Bringing Back the Bohm
Proud to present my debut as a documentary film maker with Bringing Back the Bohm, the story of a dedicated group of community leaders coming together to restore a closed and dilapidated theater in Albion, Michigan.
Last fall, through my job at Albion College, I had a chance to photograph students learning about the theater’s restoration process. Elizabeth Schulteiss, the executive director of the Albion Community Foundation and lead cheerleader of the Bohm project, and I talked about how several documentary offers had fallen through.
Having done video work for the college, I volunteered to complete a short documentary for the theater in time for their grand opening on December 27, 2014 – the 85th anniversary of the theater’s opening in 1929.
The project was well outside my comfort zone. A five minute video I can do, but a half hour video?
Luckily I had lots of help from the Friends of the Bohm committee, my co-worker (and producer!) Erica, and the resources at the college.
The documentary debuted at the grand opening, after a rushed few weeks to get all the interviews and editing done.
I’ll say this: it’s a heckuva thing to see something you made on a real big screen. The film has its quirks, and I see lots of stuff I’d like to make better. But the point is, it’s done and out in the world for lots of people to see.
Learn more about this great historical community theater, and catch a movie there. You can order a copy of the documentary on DVD by contacting the theater, too.
Documentary Debut
Presenting: Bringing Back the Bohm
My debut as a documentary filmmaker is now live.
Proud of how it turned out.
Whitefish Point, Michigan
It’s one of those rare places on Earth: the point of something, as far in as you can go, surrounded by water and stories and wreckage.
Whitefish Point, in the upper peninsula of Michigan, is just such a place. The home of shipwrecks (and a museum) on ol’ Lake Superior, it’s only bested by Copper Harbor to the west.
Imagine a beautiful white sandy beach bordering a lake far too cold for swimming, with driftwood everywhere – like the bleached bones of some mammoth sea creature. From the beach, you can look north and see Canada, just gentle bumps on the horizon, with Superior everywhere else.
Whitefish Point is one of those places that make Michigan Michigan.
A few months back, I landed on a monograph by Edward Weston, one of the greats. I appreciated his landscape work (even more so than Ansel Adams), and especially his detail work of the seascape in California. The textures, the tones, the detail. He had a knack for capturing objects like they were organic, or even human.
So I gave that mindset a try with the driftwood at Whitefish Point, along with a few photos of the scenery.
I didn’t try to match Weston’s color so much as his attention to detail: the little grooves and bends of the driftwood, the feel of the sand, the man-made desolation.
Using the Fuji X-E1’s black and white film emulation mode, specifically with the red filter, I was looking to grab the sky in a dramatic way, too. It was a warm day that day, but there was a breeze, and it felt like some storm could ruin everyone’s beach day at any moment, sweeping south from Superior.
But no storm came. Just gulls and the wind from the lake.
Collected Dew Drops For Tea
A preview of a series of autumn sunrise macro shots I’m working on. Turned out really nice, using VSCO Film 03.
Seasons: A Year in Four Parts
Earlier this year I told myself, “You have to print more of your work.”
And after learning about MagCloud (now owned by Blurb) from Patrick LaRoque, I decided to try printing a book of my Instagram photos that represent seasons through the year.
Here we have Seasons: A Year In Four Parts.
It was mostly an experiment to try self publishing. MagCloud offers very nice templates for InDesign (and other publishing platforms), and I got to do the design, layout, and typography myself.
Square format, 80 pages measuring 8″ wide and tall, with perfect-bound binding.
I purchased two copies – one for myself, and one as a potential gift. MagCloud stores the book for me, in case I want to give out another copy. And boy, the prices are super reasonable for this kind of thing. It makes me want to try to do these little photo books a few times a year.
My next experiment will be with Mosaic – printing a photo book right from my iPhone. I’m thinking about doing something with my Cloud Atlas series.
This is the dream of digital, DIY publishing: make your own thing, with your own stuff, at a reasonable price…and maybe make it available to others on demand.
So I’m making Seasons available for purchase. $20 for the physical edition and a buck ($1, cheap!) for the digital edition.
80 pages, published 6/5/2014
‘Seasons: A Year In Four Parts” is a collection of Instagram photos representing winter, spring, summer, and fall.
