Oh, you know. Just a Pentax K1000 hanging out on the beach.
Just about done with this roll of black and white film, finally. It’s getting to the point where I hardly remember what’s on it. But on this day, Labor Day, it was on the beach.
I don’t take many landscape photographs. Landscapes are lovely to see, when done right (read: not obnoxious HDR), but it’s probably the patience required that turns me off. You have to wait for the right combo of weather and subject.
But toward the end of summer, things line up just right, especially in my daily commute, and especially near where I live. The fall light, the earlier sunrises, the mist covering the fields – it’s all great for photos.
This one is a country block from my house. I caught it on the way home from the Jackson County Fair, in early August, and snapped it with my Canon EOS M (and edited with VSCO Film 04). Not bad for a little mirrorless camera with a pancake lens.
Landscapes still don’t interest me all that much, but I take advantage of the scenery when I see it.
I get lots of stuff from Chicago. In fact, walking around downtown Detroit this summer, I felt like I knew the Windy City better than I know my local big city.
So in early August I had the chance to explore a bit while at a training seminar for work.
Sticking to mainly Woodward Ave., it was a fun stroll through the heart of the Motor City: starting at Hart Plaza (above), passed Campus Martius, and on down to the filming set for ‘Transformers 4.’
I’ve had Detroit on my photo list for a long time – to take a day or an afternoon and just explore. And shoot.
So it was nice to finally do that.
And it’s not like I saw a whole lot. Detroit is a giant city, geographically, and there’s no way a visiting tourist like me could do it justice.
What I did see, though, was a quiet city at sundown, with lots of graffiti.
There’s that whole Abandoned Detroit thing, and as much as I love the abandoned stuff I didn’t want to go there just yet. That’s like making out with someone on the first date.
(what?)
Instead, Detroit and I shook hands on a warm summer evening.
(Photos processed with VSCO Film Fuji FP-100c Negative +++. See the rest of the set on Flickr.)
This time of year is both happy and sad. Happy because, hey, it’s still technically summer.
But it’s sad because it’s the Sunday of summer – the last little bit before fall starts creeping in. Nothing says this more than harvest time, especially this cool summer in Michigan that feels like half-fall anyway.
Fall is a lot of people’s favorite season, but not mine. The crops, though. Man, I’ll take those all autumn long.
Michigan is known mainly for its cherries, apples, and blueberries, but we’re lucky in that a lot of crops grow well here. Peaches, melons, corn.
“You can tell it’s a Michigan [insert crop here],” my family used to say. “They don’t grow these like they do in Michigan.”
I’m not positive that’s true. But I do know that everything tastes pretty darned good this time of year.
June
Came upon us much too soon
Then was gone
Gone
Like the mountains of the moon
At dawnThen the sun came up on a sleepy day
And never went down at night
And the crowd kept on singin’ “Waste Away”
but it just didn’t feel right
And the prince and the drummer and the fire girls
Couldn’t get our guitars in tune
And I knew it was over when the sound man said
“I wish we were still in June”
Ah, summer.
It’s only summer, especially in Michigan, that you can take a group of co-workers, head out onto the college quad, and have an impromptu grill out.
And take pictures of co-workers’ bare feet in the grass.
I use a camera in a lot of my work social situations. It’s an easy way to get some practice in, and it seems my co-workers appreciate some of the shots. Especially when kids are involved.
At work, I’m “the camera guy.” So much so that I’ll purposefully leave the camera behind just so it doesn’t become an expectation.
“Where’s your camera, Dave?”
“Not here.”
But beautiful sunny days in May? Count on me.