up north

Michiganders refer to anything north of Clare as "Up North." It's just an unwritten rule. It's always capitalized, to the point that it's even pronounced with capitalization. In fact, Clare, although it is located right in the middle of the "hand" and just about as far as possible from any state or international borders, is home to a large "Michigan Welcome Center," right off of Highway 127, the main artery that bisects Michigan vertically. Kind of amusing.

Anyway, in June 2008, I went on my third trip Up North. It was my last trip Up North as a Michigander, taken just a couple of weeks before I moved back to Chicago. I was with four of my favourite road tripping buddies, and it was our annual birthday celebration, since four of us have birthdays between mid-May and mid-June.

Our first stop was Sleeping Bear Dunes, a national lakeshore located near the pinkie finger of Michigan's mitten, just west of the Traverse City area. After paying a nominal admission fee to enter the park (good for the weekend, although we had too much to do to go back), we took the scenic drive through the park. We didn't stop at every point of interest, although I think we hit the most important ones. It probably took about 2 hours in total, just because we stopped for quite a while at one of the turnoffs.


Our first view of the dunes and a spectacular vista with Lake Michigan in the distance. I love the way that the sky turned out in this photo.


Okay. Noted. I did not attempt to scale the bluff.


However, I did take a photo of others trying to scale the aforementioned steep bluff. This photo is as-shot. I promise, I didn't tilt it or take it from an odd angle to make it appear even steeper!


This view was worth the drive already, and this was only the first stop on the trip.

Up next: more from Up North!

hills of the irish kind

Goodness sakes. It's December 21st and this is my first post of the month. Things have been busy, to say the least. I finished my penultimate semester of my undergraduate degree, earning a 3.9 cumulatively in my 24 glorious credits. I'm never taking a legitimate double course-load again. What was I think when I signed up for that?!

Today's photoblog installment is from November 10. Jules, my best friend, and I went to the Irish Hills in southeastern Michigan. It's an area that was settled by many Irish immigrants, allegedly, because the rolling green hills reminded them of their home country. She's always wanted to go, and I'm always up for seeing something new, so we took a free Saturday and made the short trip. We were surprised at how kitschy-touristy it was. Most of the souvenir shops and "attractions" were closed, but I felt like we'd driven into a 1960s family vacation, complete with a giant statue of Paul Bunyan (not pictured) and wooden buildings labeled "saloon" and whatnot.

The area (as pictured) was beautiful. We first stopped at Wamplers Lake in Walter J. Hayes State Park, and then drove east on US-12 until we reached St. Joseph's Church, situated on the south bank of Iron Lake, and home to a memorial to the Irish Potato Famine. The experience marked an important step in my photographic experiments as I saw the advantage of using higher numbered f-stops for large subjects, like landscapes. It was cloudy, so I couldn't use the really high numbers without compromising ISO, but I was able to try shooting on 8 and 11. Since I'd mostly done sports photography with the camera up until this point, this was new and exciting for me.


Wamplers Lake in the State Park. 1/200, f/11, ISO 200.


Wamplers Lake. Jules and I had to laugh about the swan, because we had a hilarious experience with swans in Toronto in July. I'll share that story sometime. My short story about it is going to be published in my school's literary magazine this spring. 1/250, f/11, ISO 200.


Memorial to the Irish Potato Famine at St. Joseph's Church on US-12, east of Cambridge Junction, MI. 1/60, f/8, ISO 200.


Iron Lake behind St. Joseph's Church. I love the way that the sky was reflected in the lake. It was such a beautiful day. 1/80, f/8, ISO 200.


Iron Lake. I would love to live here, for about a weekend, and then I would start missing stoplights and convenience stores and highways. But it sure is pretty. 1/100, f/8, ISO 200.

Next up: probably another skating event, and then my trip to San Francisco.

michigan of the lake variety

I am so behind in photoblogging. My best friend, Emilie, updates her blog more than I do, and she's in Lesotho, without any regular internet access. Of course, Emilie is also talking to actual people when she blogs, people she will not see again until early 2010 at best. I am talking to myself. Of course, since I drive over an hour every day to commute to school and back, I talk to myself quite a bit. This is nothing new; it's just with pictures.

A few weeks ago, on my way back to Lansing from Chicago, I decided that I wanted to take photos of Lake Michigan. I got off of I-94 in southwestern Michigan and drove towards the lake. I ended up in one of those private, rustic communities, but rustic in the sense that they have a lot of "TOP SECRET PRIVATE DRIVEWAY" type of signs and strategically-placed fences, so you can't glimpse the lake for anything. I thought about hopping a fence, since most of the houses looked empty, but decided to just drive a bit further north in search of a public lake viewing area. I stumbled upon Warren Dunes State Park, a favourite weekend destination of many a Chicago-based youth group, including mine. I think I only went on the trip once, though. I'm not a big beach person. I am, however, big on photographing big lakes.


Big lake with little waves, taken while crouching down so waves look bigger. A little bigger. Maybe.


This probably breaks some rule of basic photography, but I love taking pictures of water into the sun. I love the glare.


Not the best picture in the world of a dune, but probably not the worst either. The small dots in the middle are cute kids that kept climbing up them just so they could run down. I don't think I ever had that kind of energy.

I've been a busy bee lately. I have photos from the Irish Hills to post, as well as ones from my Thanksgiving-break trip to San Francisco. I might post a few more skating ones in the near future, too.