We took the first day of August and hit the lake: paddleboards, swimming, and catching the last sunlight of the day.
From here, we’re off to Door County, Wisconsin, again for our summer holiday. That means more sunsets, more paddleboards, and more time on the water.
Gotta love summer in the upper Midwest.
Some random summer evening shots around the neighborhood.
Out on walks, I noticed a surprising number of barn-shaped sheds. The light around 7:30 PM hit just right.
Swimming and hiking and bonfiring.
Drinking and s’more’ing and eating some more’ing.
Finding the nature therapy you’ve long needed. Spending time with family. Introducing places like Mackinac Island to the kids, and bringing back memories with you on the ferry ride across Lake Michigan.
Climbing to the top of a 10-story lighthouse along Lake Huron. Braving the pouring rain or the biting mosquitos.
Grabbing your camera and capturing the last remaining light of a busy day.
It’s more than a checklist. These are all the elements of a great summer vacation.
Lately, I’ve had the itch to get out and shoot more. Sometimes, hobbies can come and go in waves – often depending on what else is going on in life. Right now feels like a crest, where I want go make more photos.
Saturday evening at Sandhill Crane Vineyards was a good chance to shoot. It was a lovely summer evening, with off and on clouds, and the sun was popping in and out of the clouds. As soon as it popped out during sunset, I took a walk around their mini festival to see what I could see.
And something different: I strapped a EF 28mm f/1.8 to my Canon EOS M, using the EF-to-M adapter, for a ~42mm field of view. 40mm tends to be my comfort zone. Even though the camera felt a little front-heavy, the FOV was perfect.
So was the light, and the setting, and the music and drinks all around.
My wife and I hit up mid-state New York to catch a Brandi Carlile concert in Bethel, the site of Woodstock.
We glamped and hit up some hiking in the Catskills while we were there. Pretty great to unzip the tent and see all this. Above shot on my Canon M, below on iPhone 13.
More to come from my film camera.
A continuation of my Door County, Wisconsin, series from this year’s summer holiday. This time, a few scenes from around the cabin in Idlewild.
And to finish up, a few random scenes. I always see something worth holding on to (besides cheese and cider) when we head north.
Until next time.
Kicking off a series of photos from our summer vacation spot: Door County, Wisconsin.
Yes, we’d been there in 2018 and 2020. We love the area so much that we went back this year for our family holiday.
Different cabin (the big one), different month (August instead of June/July), and different crowd (we brought the in-laws), but other than that, it was as spectacular as it always is.
I take a memory card’s worth of photos wherever we go. Above is a series of windows I saw along the way. Here are some natural spots:
More to come next week.
The county fair, just before sunset.
Turned down the exposure compensation and was pleasantly surprised at the image quality.
Needs more neon.
Enjoying a baseball game next to the Cuyahoga River.
(Shot on my iPhone 13 mini and edited in Darkroom.)
It’s been a year of new homes, with our family’s, and my dad purchasing a cabin in Hale, Michigan – in the northeast, close to Lake Huron.
We took Independence Day weekend and traveled there for the first time. It was our chance to get out of town, spend some summer days outside, and see a new place.
We found everything we were looking for in the pastoral scenery, the cool and clear lakes, and the natural beauty you find in northern Michigan.
I almost brought a film camera to fit the setting. After all, every 50 miles you go north you travel back in time 10 years. But that will have to wait. I didn’t want to fuss with film and settings and remembering how to use my Canon AE-1. I wanted to keep it simple.
Simple is good. That’s why we’re here.
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin – looking forward to heading there again this year for our summer vacation.
More from around the new house.
We’re still getting settled, making this our home, these summer days.
Some things are coming back, and it feels good.
Even though our local county fair has a new layout, and even if I was a bit nervous being around so many people, I used the return of our fair as a photo walk.
Over the years, the county fair has been one of my favorite photography subjects: the bright colors, the summer haze, the motion, and the prime people watching. For one night, we did the family outing, and for the other night, I went by myself to concentrate on photography.
I took my trusty Canon 5D and three lenses – 20mm, 50mm, and 100mm – to add some variety. In the end, I wound up mostly using the reliable 50mm, but the 100mm allowed me to get some people shots from a (social) distance.
It was a hot, sweaty night, as it usually is in August, full of fried smells and flashing lights.
It’s all we ask for on holiday: a small, cozy cottage on a midwestern lake, somewhere quiet and isolated to land when our daily adventures are done.
Living in Michigan, no matter where you are in the state, you’re never more than an hour or two away from one of the Great Lakes.
Our proximity to these bodies of water inspires so many of our summer family vacations. This year, we went north to the Traverse City and Leelanau Peninsula region. We love our Door County, Wisconsin vacations so much that we wanted a similar experience this summer. With its apple and cherry orchards, numerous lakes, and varied landscape, the peninsula provided everything we look for in a holiday.
Despite the rain, we had a great vacation – a great mix of playing outdoors, relaxing by the lake, and exploring M-22 and the Sleeping Bear Dunes.
A funny thing happened at the world-renowned dunes: we visited during a particularly foggy day, where all of Lake Michigan was enshrouded in a heavy vapor. From the top of the dunes, you couldn’t see the lake at all.
We all looked on in amazement. It’s like we were staring at the edge of creation – down the dunes, you would fall off the end of the world.
Luckily, further north along the dunes, we did find a place to sit on the beach and swim in Lake Michigan.
Our state is fairly average in almost every way – except the scenery. If this is the edge of the world, we’re happy to be here.
So we went back to the spot we loved two years ago: Door County, Wisconsin. Same cabin property, same bay on Lake Michigan, same rustic charm and isolation that we needed so badly then and now.
And socially isolate we did. We rarely left the property, opting instead to hang out by the lake, eat Wisconsin cheese, drink Wisconsin cider and beer, and let the kids play in the water. The few times we did go out to explore the peninsula, we stuck to state parks and little shops. We ate out twice. We played it safe.
It was nice to not think about what was happening elsewhere in the country, or work, or anything else. We made new family memories, enjoyed our solitude, and drove back rested and refreshed.
The weather was perfect: lovely Great Lakes sunsets, never getting hotter than 80 degrees during the day, no rain. We stayed in a new cabin (next door to the one we stayed in last time) so I could explore the summer light.
Just what we all needed.
