Grab A Seat
Grab A Seat – Stockbridge, Michigan
photography
Parma, Michigan
Parma, Michigan is a little burg on the west end of Jackson County – quiet and empty the day I was there.
Shot on the original Canon M with the EF-M 22mm f/2.
Philly in 50mm: Museum District
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.
Shot on the Canon R with the RF 50mm f/1.8 lens.
Philly in 50mm: Downtown
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.
Grass Lake, Michigan
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.
Embracing Shadows
“I could take the limitations of the camera and use [shadows] to create something even more interesting.”
I feel like that’s a perfect distillation of my style: never be afraid of the shadows.
Friday Night Lights
Small town Friday night? That means football this time of year.
With Aiden in marching band, that means we head to Jackson High for a beautiful September evening and watch our hometown Vikings win against Tecumseh.
Shot on the Canon 5D and EF 50mm f/1.4.
Marching Band
It’s a false summer night – part of a week full of those final warm days before autumn sets in.
Autumn means marching band season, so Aiden and I headed to Jackson High’s football field for his first practice session. It gave me a chance to catch some of the light and colors around the stadium.
Shot on the Canon M200 with the EF-M 15-45mm kit lens.
Light Just Right
A note about waiting for good light.
The above is the same house taken at the same time of year, within a day or two of each other, just at different times during the morning.
I drive by this little house a few times a week. For months, I’ve thought to myself: “That would make for a good photograph.” Finally, one morning, I had time enough to pull over and take the shot. The first attempt is the one on the left.
The light is okay. There’s a touch on the front porch and a bit on the left near the chair—that golden morning light hitting halfway between the front door and the stairs.
But something felt off when I got back and imported the picture into Lightroom. The house itself is too much in the shade, while the lawn and the trees on the right have a neutral, even light. The fluffy clouds in the upper left are a nice touch though.
So I gave it another try, this time earlier in the morning when the sun was hitting the entire house on the side, coming from the East on the left. Angled shadows hit the lawn and the front of the house, and the sunshine lit up that (cursed) Ohio flag. The porch is a bit more in shade, but there’s still a touch of light hitting the chair.
The temperature of the light, too, is different in the second shot: it is more golden and a bit harsher, painting the scene with a more dramatic brush. I do miss those fluffy clouds from the first image, though.
Both are fine. I’m glad I took another stab at it. The light was worth waiting for.
Here’s the final photo:
Both images shot with the Canon M6 and EF-M 28mm f/3.5 macro.
Using Older Camera Gear
“Rebelling against the standard” – that’s all the excuse I need.
Martin Castein makes a good case for using older gear, but one point he missed:
Save money.
Instead of $1,000-4,000 for a new camera, how about using a five- to 10-year-old camera for $500 or less? There are so many great deals to be had on fantastic cameras.