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.

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Fujifilm X-E1: A Review

Fujifilm X-E1: Fujinon 27mm f/2.8

Last year, for my birthday, I purchased a gently used Fuji X-E1 from fredmiranda.com, ushering in my entry to the Fujifilm system.

After many months of using (and a bit of abusing) this great little camera, I’m going to run down some thoughts on it.

Attraction

Hey – it was my birthday. What other excuse do I need to buy a new camera?

But really, it was after seeing the incredible work of La Roque and others that first attracted me to the Fujifilm system. There was a magic in these cameras, they told me, similar to Leica and Apple and all those cultish (and quality) consumer brands.

The key was to buy into the system at a discount, which is why I went with a used Fuji X-E1, the consumer-grade Fujifilm camera. For $300, I bought into a whole new camera and lens system. I also purchased the Fujinon 27mm pancake lens during last spring’s rebate. Everything was affordable, and I felt I wasn’t losing much even if my new-camera experiment didn’t work out.

It was an easy way to see what all the fuss was about. So I did it.

Happy birthday, me!

 

Hare Krishna: Dance

Handling

First, much like my Canon EOS M, I can see why photographers are singing the praise of mirrorless cameras. The lightness and portability are a definite plus.

In fact, the X-E1 is almost too light – or too hollow. That’s why I’m thankful my X-E1 seller included a leather case. The heft the case adds feels more natural in my hands. Even with that, though, the camera and lens combo is light. Featherweight, even. It makes my Canon M feel like a solid brick of metal.

The pancake lens adds almost nothing to the weight, and very little to the size. That may be a different story with something like the Fujinon 35mm, but I set this system up to be portable and small.

 

Downtown Jackson: B-Z-Bee Cafe

I knew that this wasn’t a DSLR, and that not everything would be accessible as a button or switch. So menu hunting gets a little old sometimes. But as long as I’m thoughtful, and think through a shooting session, I get by okay.

And can we talk about style? For someone’s who’s not concerned with fashion, getting the fun “is that a film camera?” comments has been a hoot for me. It becomes a topic of conversation, even with strangers.

 

Red Barn Doors [Explored]

Photo Files

Everyone’s right: there’s something very special about these Fuji photo files. I knew that from my few weeks using a Fujifilm X100 a few summers back.

I’ll say that the X100 had something really special about it. I look back at those files and realize that the X-E1′s don’t quite match up. It could be the lens that makes the difference. I don’t know. But there is a difference – those X100 images are stellar.

 

Springtime on Campus

The X-E1′s? Still great. There’s a coldness to them, but they’re certainly sharp. I’ve found that I don’t enjoy using the film simulation modes. They do things with colors that are not pleasing to my eye. The black and white modes work pretty well, though.

Ben Brooks has some nice thoughts on his XE-2, and I really enjoyed his parting words on using a Fuji for the style:

The color rendering, the feel, the controls. It’s not a system that is quantitatively better if you ask me, but it is a system that just makes you feel like you have the chance to create something special every time you press the shutter release because the cameras and lenses themselves feel very special to use.

The cameras? Yes. The photo files? Maybe.

It could be that my eyes are use to seeing Canon files. It could be the sharpness is off-putting sometimes – it’s hard to describe, but there’s a crispness to the images that’s almost too much.

 

Birthday Presents

The Future

All in all, the Fuji X-E1 has been a great little camera. Portable, flexible, fashionable, and not obnoxious. It certainly has its quirks.

I do find myself missing Canon image files. Maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten so used to them, but the “coldness” in the Fuji files, and something about the color, isn’t as pleasing to me.

For the near future, I do see trying out a Fujinon 35mm. The 27mm makes for a fine walk-around lens, but to get truly creative, I feel like the shallow depth of field on the 35mm will open some options. And people have (mostly) nothing but good things to say about it.

I see this as primarily my travel camera. When I go somewhere, the X-E1 will go with me.

You can view some of the images I’ve made with this camera at my Flickr album.

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Tobermory, Ontario

Land, ho!
Sunset on the Georgian Bay. We had a prime location along the lake.
The rocky shore of Flowerpot Island.
The boys of summer.
Exploring the Bruce Peninsula National Park.
The diving boat.
Boats crossing in the sun.

The first thing you notice as you approach Tobermory, Ontario, is the islands. They come up on the ferry in quiet way, and then the peninsula appears. The islands are just a preview.

Jutting out into the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, on the same piece of limestone as Toronto and Niagra Falls, Tobermory is a special place. It’s lifeblood is the Great Lake freshwater that surrounds it, and its flesh is the hard, unforgiving stone it sits upon. There’s no sandy beaches here. No, it’s all stone, either in slabs – big, brutalist shelves of pain – or pebbles.

Someday, a million years from now, there may be sand.

I used my pair of mirrorless cameras, the Fuji X-E1 and Canon EOS M, as a no-fuss way of capturing the place. After all, I was here to explore, not lug a bunch of photography equipment. I had cliffs to climb and trails to hike. The woods called.

So did the boats. Ferries run from the peninsula town to the wild islands out in the bay, and other, smaller boats are all over the place. It’s a place that lives and breathes water. Water is everywhere.

For those of us living around the Great Lakes, this is nothing new. But Tobermory has that lakeside town feel, the kind of place you see up and down the west coast of Michigan, that makes it the perfect vacation spot.

Islands and boats and water and rock: the four true elements of Lake Huron.

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