This is a shot taken recently in Chelsea, Michigan home to Chelsea Milling, makers of Jiffy Mix and also the home town of Jeff Daniels, whose family owns Chelsea Lumber Company. The main subject in this shot is the Clocktower, which was built by the Glazier Stove Company which once operated the worlds largest oil stove factory on the site. The Clocktower building was once the tallest structure in Washtenaw County. The tower served the dual purpose of holding a 20,000 gallon (76,000 liter) water tank for fires and for keeping time. While the Clocktower no longer serves as a water tower, but the old water tank is still encased within the tower just below the clock faces.

When the weather starts to get worse, I like to take the time to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The museum houses a great collection of ‘industrial’ artifacts and they are quite reasonable about photography. One of the areas that I like to visit is the section on power generation. The museum has a great collection of generators from very old to more modern. I’m just attracted to the large scale and interesting mechanical details of these machines.

I’m slowly going back over some images that I shot over the summer to find ones that I either overlooked or never got a chance to work with. This image comes from the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America show held at St. John’s near Plymouth, Michigan. The car is a 1957 Buick Century Caballero Estate Wagon. What caught my eye when I saw it was the interesting “Mint Green and Dover White” color scheme and interesting styling. As I was processing the image, the thought crossed my mind that the image sort of looks like the Eye of Horus with the exhaust ports being the eyebrow and the tire being the eye.

On a recent trip to northern Michigan, my wife and I visited Traverse City Commons. I’ve posted shots from this location before. The site is the location of the old Northern Michigan Asylum where they are converting the old buildings into retail, office and residential spaces. The weather the morning we arrived was cloudy, but breaks were beginning to appear in the clouds. As the sun peaked through it shone on the roof tops and really highlighted the towers/cupolas that are a key feature of the main building.

Port Oneida is an historic farming area in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The area has an interesting collection of old farmhouses and out buildings. My wife and I were driving through the area on a less beaten path when we came across this farmstead. There was a farmhouse off to the right which was interesting, but I thought these two buildings had more character.

The Mackinac Bridge in northern Michigan is the third longest suspension bridge in the world and is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. The suspension part of the bridge is 8921 feet and the total length of the bridge is 26, 372 feet. The bridge was built to connect Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas. The bridge spans the Straits of Mackinac which is where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron. The concept for a bridge at this location had been pondered since 1884, but wasn’t built until 1954. The bride opened to traffic in 1957. One of the fun events surrounding the bridge is the annual Labor Day ‘Bridge Walk’. Each Labor Day, half of the bridge is dedicated to foot traffic and you can walk the bridge starting on the north side. The middle lanes of the bridge are made out of a steel grate to let the wind pass through. As you walk across the bridge, it is interesting to look down through the grate at the water below. If you’re lucky, a freighter might be passing under the bridge at the time.

I recently purchased a B+W 10 Stop ND filter and I’ve been looking for opportunities to try it out. My wife and I were on vacation last week and one evening I decided to try my hand at a long exposure landscape shot. I’m still learning the tricks to making long exposures work so this shot was as much of an experiment as anything. The sun was setting on the other side of the island but I had noticed that there were some clouds that were going to get some of the late sunlight. I headed to a spot which I thought might make an interesting composition and set up. I took a couple practice shots and then put on the 10 stop filter. The exposure was 2 minutes. Post processing involved working to lighten up the tree area on the left which was rather dark in the raw image. I spent a little time with some curves layers trying to adjust the brightness/contrast of the rocky area in the foreground as well. I’m not sure this qualifies as a great landscape shot, but I’m happy with it.

This shot was taken in the old wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). I’ve always liked this gallery and I’ve been here a few times to take pictures of it. Each time is a little different, different people, different light, etc. I had a blog post back in 2010 with an image similar to the one you see here, but with a completely different method and style of processing. For that image I went with a grittier, almost HDR look. I liked the way the processing brought out the detail in the floor, but I’ve always felt that this shot was meant for black & white. I also wasn’t too thrilled with the number of people in the shot, so I went back at a later date and took the shot you see above. In this shot, there is only the one woman on the bench, which I like better. I also chose to convert the image to black & white. Initially I created an image to which I added a bit of film grain, however I ultimately decided that I wanted a smoother look. I edited the shot to hide the grain layer and used Lightroom noise reduction to help smooth the shot out even more.

The mid 30’s Cord automobile has long been a favorite of mine. The distinctive feature being the ‘coffin’ nose and the exposed exhausts. On of my favorite Cord’s is a model 810. The car was introduced at the 1936 New York, Los Angeles and Chicago auto shows. The show car was unique in that it had copper accents. The show car is on display at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg museum in Auburn, Indiana. The 810 was designed by noted car designer Gordon Buehrig. The 810 was originally going to be a 1935 Duesenberg but after incorporating a front wheel drive design, the vehicle was renamed Cord.

Here’s another shot taken at the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America held in Plymouth, Michigan. This one shows a detail of the engine cowling of a 1940 Packard 180 Convertible Victoria. The Packard Motor Car Company started life in 1899 as the Ohio Automobile Company. Packard started the company after accepting a challenge from Alexander Winton to build a better car than was being produced by the Winton Motor Carriage Company. The Winton company was one of the first companies to sell motor cars and Packard had complained to Winton about the quality of his car. Packard changed the name of his company to the Packard Motor Car Company in 1902 and moved to Detroit in 1903.