couple of weeks ago I ventured over to the west side of MIchigan in search of something different to shoot. I found some interesting subjects and headed back home. I hadn’t had any lunch, so on the way home I decided to stop and get some food. The weather was kind of snowy and the roads were a bit of a mess so my intention was to get a quick lunch and head back on to the highway. I saw a sign for a fast food restaurant so I thought I would get off and grab a bite to eat. Normally these restaurants are right at the exit so you can get off, eat and get back on. However, when I got off at this particular exit, I found out that the restaurant was about 5 miles north of the highway. I debated for a bit about just getting back on and going to the next location, but finally decided to just put in the little extra time since I was already off the highway. On my way up the road I passed by this old church. I thought it had some interesting character so I decided after I had my lunch I would come back and take some shots.

This is another shot I took at the North American International Auto Show held in Detroit, Michigan. I was looking for something different than just a picture of a car. I had put on my Sigma 15mm fisheye lens and was looking for interesting angles to put it to use. I was walking through the Mercedes exhibit and decided to see what I could get if I took something while seated on the ground. I liked the curve I got in the floor and ceiling. When processing the image I felt that the distortion of the flooring created a sense of motion, almost as if I had moved the camera while taking the shot. I liked how the combination of the floor and ceiling almost create a vortex in the center of the image.

This image is a bit of an experiment. I shot this at the 2011 North American International Auto Show held at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. The show always has one day where photographers can get in early. This image was show in the Audi booth using my Sigma 15mm fisheye lens. The man in blue is one of many workers whose job it is to keep the cars clean. I was trying to get a shot without him in the picture, but I finally just went ahead and took a few shots since he wasn’t moving. When I was looking overmy images I selected this one because I liked the way the car fit under the white arc of the show booth.

Every year Detroit hosts the North American International Auto Show, and in recent years there has been one day of the public show where they encourage photographers to come an hour before the show starts to take pictures. This is the third or fourth year that I’ve gone. It’s nice to be able to walk through the show when it isn’t very crowded. This shot was taken from the front of Cobo Hall looking across the street to the old Ponchatrain Hotel, now serving as a giant billboard for Mercedes Benz.

Monday was a holiday so I took the opportunity to take a road trip to find some new subjects to shoot. I had this notion to head three hours west of where I live to visit Grand Haven, Michigan to see if I could get some interesting shots of the lighthouse located there. I knew there was a snowstorm coming in and I was thinking I might get lucky to see some big Lake Michigan waves pounding the lighthouse. When I got there the snow was definitely falling, but the visibility was so poor that I couldn’t even see the lighthouse. With the wind whipping snow and sand, I declined to walk through the snow to get closer to see if the visibility was any better. Instead, I looked for some other subjects. On the way out of town I passed this old railroad coaling tower. The structure peaked my interest so I pulled over and took a few shots.

This shot was taken in St. Thomas, USVI on a recent trip. One of the things I was hoping to find was some brightly color boat which would make for an interesting picture. Didn’t find any of those. Instead, what I got was this gritty looking thing. The light was pretty bright and flat but I decided to take the shot anyway just for fun. When I looked through the days shots I wasn’t thrilled with what I had taken, so I decided to work on images that I liked better. After making another pass through those shots I decided to see what could be done with this image. I liked the gritty texture of the boat, especially the way the paint is all chipped and faded. I thought it might be nice to try adding some additional texture to the image through some image overlays.

I’ve always been attracted to images with a strong graphical quality, whether they are color or black and white. When I was wandering around our cruise ship I had my eye out for subjects which might make interesting subjects. This image was taken from a bridge which overlooked the pools on the Freedom of the Seas. The pools have a variety of colored elements which make for interesting visuals. For this shot I simply pointed down at a portion of the pool and attempted to capture an interesting pattern of shape and color.

I took this shot as we walked through one of the alleyways. I liked the strong light on the sign and the shadow it cast on the wall. I also liked the way the sun brought out the texture of the wall. For some reason when I took the shot I decided to shoot it wide. I had a 28-300mm lens on my camera and this shot was taken at 40mm. When I was processing it, however, I decided that the wide shot didn’t really capture the intent that I had when I took it. I was drawn to the signage and the shadows and the wide angle shot didn’t work. In processing, I reworked the crop to focus more on the sign and its shadow.

The island of St. Maarten/St. Martin is an interesting place. Half the island is Dutch, half is French. While visiting there my wife and I took a bus tour around the island which started in Phillipsburg on the Dutch side, and travelled to Marigot, the capital of the French side, and back again. Travel between the two sides is seamless, no more complicated than traveling from one state to another in the US. This shot was taken in an open air market near the waterfront in the town of Marigot. The woman who was running the booth had a large collection of herbs and spices in these bags. It was getting later in the day and I think she was starting to pack up by taking the signs out of the bags which identified the contents. I managed to get this shot before she took these out.

is is another picture I took while on my Caribbean cruise. This is a shot taken in ‘Casino Royale’, the casino on board the Freedom of the Seas. I’m not much of a gambler, although I did play a little video poker while waiting for dinner time and actually ended up ahead by a few dollars. This shot was taken with my new Sigma 15mm fisheye and it shows one of the banks of video poker games in the casino. I thought fisheye might make for an interesting shot.