The Wandering Photographer

The Windows of Port Oneida

 Port Oneida Rural Historic District is an abandonded farm community within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The Lakeshore is in the process of restoring some of the buildings and preserving the ruins of others. It is a great place to photograph.

You can read another post of mine about Port Oneida.

In this post I want to show you some of the images of windows I shot one day while wandering around the District. I alway like to take pictures of details on structures as well as overall shots. The shot at the top of this post shows a nice overall shot of a field and the Miller barn in the district. The shots below focus in on windows on the district's barns and homes.

The first three images are details from the Miller Barn.

 

 

The following image is a shot of detail from the front of the Eckhert farm house. As you can see it needs a paintjob. :)

The next one is obviousl;y in even wosre shape. each year when we return this building is closer and closer to falling down completely.

I love how the the stark texture of these images invoke different feelings in the viewer. It's something that you just don't quite get from a distance shot.

As you can see from the above images, detail views of the subject can often give a better sense of place than the object as a whole. Next time you are taking images of a place, by all means get the overall shot but don't forget to walk in close and see it from a different perspective.

© 2012 Tim Marks all rights reserved

1812 Privateer Replica Sails the Great Lakes

Stern view of the Privateer Lynx docked at Frankfort, MI.

 One of the great thinks about Historical milestones is the chance to attend various reenactments and replicas. The coming 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 is no exception. I previously wrote a post about the 1812 Militia Muster at the Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. Today I'm going to introduce you to the replica ship the Privateer Lynx.

The original Lynx received a letter of marque from President Madison. The letter allowed the Lynx to trade with the allied and neutral countries of Europe in support of the American war effort. The Lynx was armed, largely for self-defense. You can learn more about this replica and the original privateer here.

The Lynx was armed with 4 six pounders (cannon) and 4 swivel guns (shown here).

One of the great ways to get remembrances of the ship is to take photos of details of the ship. Concentrating on rigging, flags, bells and ropes presents a great feel for the ship.

Note that the flag has only 15 stars and it has 15 stripes. This was the second official flag of the United States and remained so until 1818, when the flag reverted to 13 stripes and 5 stars were added to represent the states admitted between 1792 and 1818.

Detail of the ship's rail and lines.

Lamp in the area immediately below deck

As you can see from the detail this is a working vessel.

As you can see some of the jobs on board are as dangerous as they were 200 years ago. Imgine climbing this rigging while underway.

If you get a chance, be sure to check out any War of 1812 reenactments or replicas in your home town.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Fun with Reflections

A while back, during a Photowalk in downtown Detroit, I noticed the reflections that were present in almost all of the windows. Sometimes they were a distraction and ruined the image, but other times they were fascinating designs and made great pictures.

Reflection in a window in the Greektown District of Detroit

At first glance this looks to be a confusing hodge podge of colors, buildings and people. After a while, though, it began to grow on me. It seems to represent the lights and glitter of a busy entertainment district. My fellow photographer in the foreground represents our goals for the day.

One building reflected in another along Woodward Ave. Detroit

Further along I came across this tall building reflecting the buildings from across the street. I thought that the similar colors and shapes made a nice composition.

More reflections along Woodward Ave.

Turning around this image showed up in my viewfinder. I thought it was the best of the three. 

Whenever I'm shooting in a urban area I try to keep in mind that the window in the building might hold an image every bit as good s a shot of the building itself. Keep your eyes and your mind open.

© 2011 Tim Marks all rights reserved

The War of 1812 Militia Muster

Always photogenic, military encampments and battle re-enactments are a fun way to learn history and get some great pictures for the photo album. We are likely to see many Civil War battles re-enacted over the next four years in celebration of the 150th anniversary of America's nation defining conflict.

Another war, oft forgotten, is soon to celebrate it's 200th anniversary. In 1812 the fledgling United States again went to war with Great Britain over a myriad of disputes. I had the opportunity to attend an 1812 militia muster at Greenfield Village. Greenfield Village is a living museum that is part of the Dearborn Michigan attraction "The Henry Ford."

Part of every re-enactment are soldiers dressed in the uniforms of the era. The military of the early republic still retained the colorful military style of earlier years. The bright colors were often necessary for the troops to recognize friend from foe.Especially in the "fog od War."

Imagine this smoke multiplied by hundreds of soldiers.

The re-enactment included weapons demonstrations, crafts and a fashion show. This gives the observer a good idea of what life was like. somewhat simplistic but a great starting point.

Firing a mortar in 1812 required a crew of five to six men.

Men's civilian fashion very much mimicked military dress.

Women's fashion began to evolve and become "less proper" I can here the dad now "you can leave the house dressed like that!"

The War of 1812 has been often ignored. It was important and widespread however. Detroit was surrendered to the Canadians without the firing of a shot. The new Americans attacked and ransacked the city of York, Upper Canada (now Toronto), while the British attacked the District of Columbia, burning the White House before they left.

If you get a chance to visit a re-enactment of an encampment do it, and don't forget your camera.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Dunes and Beaches of the Sleeping Bear

Some of the worlds most beautiful beaches and dunes can be found along the Eastern coast of upper Lake Michigan in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The park was designated a National Lakeshore in 1970 and administration was assigned to the National Park Service.

From the NPS website:

"The Park was established to preserve the 'outstanding natural features, including forests, beaches, dune formations, and ancient glacial phenomena...for the benefit, inspiration, education, recreation, and enjoyment of the public.' "

The Park includes thirty-five miles of Lake Michigan Coast almost exclusively made up of ancient dunes and wonderful beaches. The park also encompasses a number of historic sites, including the Port Oneida Rural District and a nineteenth century US Lifesaving Station at Glen Haven.

The dunes are named after the "Legend of the Sleeping Bear" and the park took its name from the legend as well.

The heart of the park however are the dunes. Here is a few more views from various points along the shore.

It is no wonder that "Dr. Beach" named the beaches of Sleeping Bear Dunes as the best beaches on the Great Lakes.

Hope you enjoyed his look at one of Michigan's wonders.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Easy Black and White with Silver Efex Pro 2

JPEG version of Original RAW file as it imported into LightRoom 3

I captured the above image of The Old Mission Point Lighthouse on a trip to Michigan's Grand Traverse region last Summer. I really liked the composition but like almost all RAW files it needed some post processing to bring out its best.

I took a look at the photo, and noticed a number of things that needed attention in order to make the image reflect what I saw that day.

 Marked up for post-processing

Three of the major problems are shown above. What was a gorgeous blue sky looks faded and boring in the photo. The clouds lack definition and the rails are way overexposed distracting the eye away from the centerpiece of the image, the lighthouse. The entire image looks flat and lifeless.

I opened the photo in Lightroom's develop module and began to process the image.

• Basic Tab - Auto as a starting point
• I adjusted the exposure until it looked right
• I adjusted the black point
• I chose "Strong Contrast" in the Tone Curve Tab
• I set the Vibrance to +43
• In the HSL Tab, I set Luminance Blue -48 and Green -57
• I used the Adjustment Brush to tone down the exposure on the rails

Result is below.

Color Processed version

I thought it looked pretty good except for the fact that I over saturated the sky so it looked a bit garish. That is easily fixed but before I started correcting it I thought, "ya know that might look pretty good in Black and White."

There are a number of ways to convert a color image to B+W. The controls found in both Lightroom and Camera RAW work very nicely and of course you can go through a bunch of steps in Photoshop to get there, but I find working in NIK Software's Silver Efex Pro 2 both satisfying and intuitive.

I opened the image in Silver Efex Pro and started to play with the myriad of presets that come with the program. After sampling a number of them I settled on "High Structure Harsh" ending up with the results below.

Output from Siver Efex Pro 2

Not bad, if I say so myself. Of course there is that nasty bit of flare in the sky (circled). Back in Lightroom I used the Adjustment Brush in Healing mode to replace the flare with clouds. I also further darkened selected spots on the rails to even things out a bit.

The final result is below. I really like the way the clouds form a halo around the tower. I think I'm going to keep working on this one to refine it even more, but as far as I'm concerned this result is not too bad for only about 25 minutes work.

Old Mission Lighthouse at the tip of the Old Misssion Peninsula in Grand Traverse County, MI Half way between the equator and the north Pole (45 degrees North)

Playing around with black and White conversions is fun and rewarding. While I find using Silver Efex Pro easy and fun, if you have any other image editing software, you too can create great Black and White images, just like in the days of Film.

Give it a whirl!

You can see my earlier post about the Old Mission Light here.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Scenes from the 2011 Concert of Colors Nights 1 & 2

 

Below are a few pictures from the first two nights of the 2011 Concert of Colors. Thursday night was a celebration of the African Diaspora at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History. Friday night at the DIA highlighted honkytonk piano and Latin rhythms.

Make sure you come on down and catch the rest of the weekend at the Max Fisher Music Center Saturday and Sunday.

Details at the Concert of Colors website.

Images from Thursday

 

Images from Friday

Saturday and Sunday promise to be even better. Come-on down and experience Detroit at its best.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Detroit's Best Festival: The 2011 Concert of Colors

The Indigo Girls with Alison Brown at the 2006 Concert of Colors

My favorite festival of the Summer is back with more acts and more days. The 19th Annual World Music and Diversity festival, the Concert of Colors, is set to go, starting Thursday July 14th and finishing up on Sunday night July17th. First held in 1994 as a celebration of metro Detroit, its diversity, its music and the music of its people, the Festival's goal is ". . . bringing together metro Detroit’s diverse communities and ethnic groups by presenting musical acts from around the world." (from the COC website).

This year the Concert expands to four days.

Thursday, with doors opening at 6pm, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History hosts a number of acts including African/Hip Hop, Soul, and traditional dance. Over at the Scarab Club the "Woodward Line Poetry" series will present the spoken word and music.

Friday night things move to the Detroit Institute of Arts with Latin Jazz and Blues performances. A screening of the movie "From Britain with Love: Africa United" will be presented. Doors open at 4pm.

 Jazz at the 2006 Festival

Saturday it all begins at 2pm at the Max M. Fisher Music Center. Three stages will be filled with a veriety of music and dance. Acts include; Japanese Drum, Reggae, Irish Folk, Arab Dance, Classical and much more. The evening ends with, what is for me, the highlight of the weekend. Each year Oak Park native Don Was (Was not Was) pulls together a diverse group of Detroit based musicians and puts on the Don Was Detroit All-Star Revue. The performances are truly a tour de force of Detroit culture. This year's ensemble includes Mitch Ryder, Melvin Davis, the Muggs and a whole lot of others.

 Former Funk Brother Dennis Coffey rocks the 2010 COC with Don Was playing bass in the background

 The Final day of the Festival opens at 2pm on Sunday at "The Max". The line-up on Sunday is as eclectic as Saturday's. It includes such local standouts as The Layabouts, and the Hamtramck World Music Ensemble. The highlight of the day should be the great Bettye LaVette. Born in Muskegon and raised in Detroit, Bettye has been belting out R&B hits since 1962. Ms. LaVette has lost none of her charisma, she retains her soul.

 Bettye LaVette performing at the Detroit Festival of the Arts in 2006

 This is a festival not-to-be-missed. The music is great and the ultimate goal of bringing us together, a mish-mash of cultures, city and suburbs, black and white, men and women is important and worthy. We may be different, but WE ARE ALL DETROIT.

The entire festival schedule can be found at the Concert of Colors web site.

See you at the Festival.

© Tim Marks 2011

Quick Review: Olympus E-PL2 Micro Four-Thirds System Camera and Lenses

William McKinley Memorial and grave site. Canton, Ohio

Note: I know there has been a year long gap in posts on my blog. It was unfortunately unavoidable. But, I'm back and I'll make a sincere attempt to post at least three stories a month in the future. Thanks for all the support.

Introduction of the Four-Thirds camera system allowed Olympus and Panasonic to create high quality interchangeable lens camera systems that are much smaller and much lighter than traditional Full Frame and APS-C DSLRs. The Micro Four-Thirds cameras reduce the size and weight even further, with no loss of image quality. The smaller sensor in the M-Four-Thirds cameras results in a so called lens "crop factor" of 2X, as apposed to 1.5X with my D300 (ASP-C camera). Therefore the 14-42mm kit lens delivers an angle of view equivelent to a 28mm-84mm lens on a 35mm camera.

 The desire to cut weight, and save my poor back, led me to explore the Micro 4/3rds system and I ended up going with the Olympus PEN E-PL2 and the 14-42mm kit lens. The PEN delivers 12 mega-pixel images of a quality indistinguishable to me from my D300, The body weighs only 12-7/8 oz. and the lens add only 5-1/2 oz., My D300 body alone weighs in at 29 oz. (almost 2lbs). As you can see below the Olympus is much smaller than a DSLR.

Olympus PEN E-PL2 with 14-42mm lens sitting next to a Canon EOS 30D with 18-200mm lens

To Round out the kit I added a Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake lens (3-1/2 oz.), yep the Panasonic uses the same Micro Four-Thirds lens mount, and an Oly 40-150mm (6.7oz.) for a complete package weight of only 28-1/2 oz. (1-3/4 lbs). Thats right the whole kits weighs less than the D300 body alone! I carry it all in an unpadded Duluthpack #100 Double Shell Bag That brings the weight of the entire package, incuding bag, to less than 4lbs.

So, how well does the PEN system work for me? So far very nicely. I was able to take system with me on a trip to Mid-Ohio and used it exclusively. I also to it with me on a visit to Belle Isle Park in the City of Detroit. Despite some limitations I was quite happy with the results.

The image at the top of the page is a shot of the William McKinley gravesite in Canton, Ohio. Shot with the 14-42mm lens set at 21mm and an ISO 0f 200 I was qute happy with the results.Image quality is excelent up to 400 ISO and quite nice at 800. Anything above gets awfully noisy but can be used in a pinch. Below is a photo inside the Canton Stark Museum and a small 100% blowup to show the noise. The photo was shot with the 14-42mm lens at 800 ISO as you can see the noisy is noticable but for my purposes acceptable, especially for online presentation.

Interior shot at the McKinley Presidential Museum in Canton, Ohio

!00% example of noise at 800 ISO

The visit to Belle Isle yield some very nice images as well. These pictures were taken with the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 at 200 ISO.

 Downtown Skyline including the General Motors Headquarters (Renaissance Center)

 Belle Isle Casino (not the gambling kind)

So what is the bottom line? This camera won't replace my D300, but I think I'll be finding myself carrying the Oly more and more often. There are a number of pros and cons. The thing I miss the most from my DSLR is a viewfinder. There is an add-on available but it is way overpriced at $200+. Despite the price I will probably eventually buy one.

Pros

• Extremely light weight
• Extremely high image quality, especially at 200 & 400 ISO
• 12 mega-pixels are more than enough.
• Small package fits in a small bag for a very easy day of carrying

Cons

• Noise at 800 is acceptable, at 1600 not so good
• Viewfinder is high cost extra
• Not a lot of lenses available yet
• Build quality is good but not at a pro level

My recommendation is that if you want a lightweight system camera for short trips or long days walking aroung the city take a close look at the Micro Four-Thirds system. It is reasonably priced and the number of lenses and accessories for it is growing.

Below is my Duluthpack bag with body, three lenses and ThinkTank Peewee Pixel Pocket Rocket. Lots of room in the front pockets for phone, wallrt, etc. Since the bag is not padded I have the lenses in neoprene pouches.

Come back later in the month for some more adventures in photography.

© 2011 Tim Marks

Great Lakes Lighthouses: Old Mission Point Lighthouse

Last week I wrote about The Grand Traverse Lighthouse on Lake Michigan at the entrance to Grand Traverse Bay. Today I'd like to show you some images of The Old Mission Point Light on Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City.

The lighthouse sits 14-1/2 miles South South East across the Grand Traverse Bay from the Grand Traverse Light and 16 miles North of Traverse City at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula.

Built in 1870, the light was intended to guide ships into the West arm of Grand Traverse Bay. The Light is no longer active as it was replaced by a Beacon 2-1/4 miles off shore.

One of the interesting factoids about Old Mission Point is that it is located almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, very near 45° North latitude. A coordinate reading taken form a Delorme software atlas puts it at N44° 59.5' (44.99°).

Old mission Point Lighthouse, another great reason to visit Pure Michigan.

© 2010 Tim Marks all rights reserved