One our way up north this summer, I took the scenic route (as I often do) through the little towns of Stockbridge and Perry, Michigan. Along the way, I made a mental note to stop by both towns and take photos.
I picked a foggy morning on the first day of autumn to head up to Stockbridge. I’m glad I did, because the mist gave the town square a vibe. I made a whole morning out of it, shooting along the way and back home, and it ended up being a really productive (and fun) day out.
Shot on the Canon 5D with a combo of the EF 28mm and 40mm.
For our anniversary, I reserved a Salsa Night out for my wife and me last weekend.
Since we didn’t know how to salsa dance, I tried to reserve pre-show lessons for us. However, the lessons were all sold out.
That meant we were going into an unfamiliar dance night as total rookies.
“We can do this,” I thought. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The music was great, and the dancers who readily joined the dance floor were impressive to watch. What about us?
My first idea was to get the rhythm down and do anything I could to get comfortable with salsa.
The beat? Four-four. But the rhythm was one-two, one-two, so while I sat in my chair, I tapped out the steps with my feet, mimicking the dancers in front of me. Once I had that, I felt like I could improvise the rest.
And since we were on a rare date night, just my wife and me, away from the kids, there was a little pressure to have a bit of extra fun and make this evening memorable.
To calm our nerves, we got up to slow dance during one of the ballads. We had done this dozens of times before. But while we were slow dancing, the rhythm changed just a bit – more of a swing – so we added some swagger to our slow dancing to feel it out. This was a good warm-up.
When we sat back down, I went back to feet-tapping the rhythm, slowly pounding out some courage to go up and truly salsa dance on the floor. Then my wife and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“Let’s salsa,” I said, shrugging, as I grabbed my wife’s hand and went out to boogie.
And you know what? We had a great time. First, no one noticed us. Everyone was either watching the band or the more proficient dancers all around us.
Second, we were having so much fun that we didn’t worry about what we looked like. Sure, we tripped up a few times, and I awkwardly tried to spin my wife around like I saw those other dancers do. But we never stopped smiling and we never slowed down – even during the line dance that I couldn’t quite get perfect.
Nerves turned into laughter, and self-consciousness turned into being in the moment. We giggled as we occasionally stumbled off the beat.
Sometimes, we don’t know all we need to know to succeed—or even to have fun. That’s fine because, with a little bit of self-made comfort and practice, you can easily make the most of a situation with low stakes and high enjoyment.
On this Salsa Night, joy trumped comfort. We were there to have fun together, and step by step, we earned it.
More 50mm shots from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this time near the art museum (made famous in Rocky).
The hike from downtown to the museum district is a pleasant one, lined with sycamore trees and art installations along the way. At the start, you have the Barnes Foundation, and then halfway down the path you have the Rodin Museum – a space that looks like an ancient Roman edifice left behind by millennia and plunked down into a sprawling, modern American city.
Then you get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with its Rocky statue and iconic stairway, and you can tell this is where people gather. Especially dudes who just jogged all the way here to run up those steps.
I haven’t been to Philly in years, not since my big Revoluationary War tour of New England in 2008, and it was great to see some places I didn’t catch on the original trip.
Quick work trip last week to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.
My coworkers and I had a chance to visit downtown Philly briefly. With only my work camera – a Canon R with the RF 50mm f/1.8 lens – I snagged a few pictures around the historic district and the art museum stairs (made famous in the Rocky movie).
These are the downtown portion, in and around the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
I don’t often do the street photography thing, but it was nice to explore a busy urban area and capture the people and scenes around this important American city.
That’s my daughter, Madelyn, in the middle far-right, looking damp and pensive. Yesterday, she earned Flickr’s Explore honors
Earning a “Congrats on Explore!” is a fun surprise. It often means a photo is appreciated or receives a lot of likes and comments. Browsing through the Explore selections, you see some great work from all over the world.
I entered Madelyn’s photo into Flickr’s World Photography Day photo contest. She didn’t win that, but she got an Explore nod (as did the other entries in the contest, it seems).
As to what wins an Explore entry, I cannot figure out a rhyme or reason, and some of my Explored photos make no sense. But I appreciate the surprise every time it happens.
Capturing small towns around mid-Michigan is an ongoing project. A few weeks back, I grabbed a sunny morning in early September and went to Grass Lake, Michigan, a little village on the East end of Jackson County.
A powerhouse in local football, and an old railroad stop along the I-94 corridor to Ann Arbor and Detroit, Grass Lake has a quaint downtown district with some alleyways great for exploring. It was quiet the morning I was there – very few walkers or browsers on the square – but E Michigan Ave is always busy with traffic.
For this trip, I took the Canon M6 and a mix of 22mm and 28mm EF-M lenses.
This fall, I plan to try and visit more little towns around this area of Michigan. So far, I have visited Springport, Parma, Homer, and Brooklyn.
