Tag: Michigan

Custom Royal

Posted under Automotive

Custom Royal

I went to the Concours d’Elegance of America car show today. The event used to be known as the Meadowbrook Concours, but for a variety of reasons the show had to move to a new location. This year the event was held at St. Johns near Plymouth, Michigan. I believe the show had over 300 cars of various vintages and styles. My favorites tend to be the cars of the 30’s but there are interesting aspects to most cars displayed at this event.


Gas Pump

Posted under Michigan

Gas Pump

I took this shot of an old gas pump when I visited the Gilmore Car Museum a few weeks ago. Out in front of their vintage Shell gas station they have 3 or 4 vintage gas pumps. I was using my Olympus E-3 with an old Zuiko 50mm macro lens at the time which helped get a nice crisp close up. I especially like the pile of dead bugs at the bottom.


Morning at the Harbor

Posted under Michigan

Spool

On a recent trip to Marquette, Michigan I had an opportunity to walk around the lower harbor early one morning. It was the 5th of July and the Marquette had hosted a 4th of July party down in the harbor area. It was interesting wandering around as volunteers were cleaning up and packing things up from the night before. As I wandered around I walked down one of the roads leading out to the docks. As I walked out I passed a metal building which had these interesting devices attached. They were several feet wide and looked like they would be used to spool something, but I have no idea what. I just liked the way they looked in the morning light.


Today’s image is a close-up of some of the details that made St. Peter’s Cathedral so interesting. If you saw yesterday’s post, you know this picture is of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Marquette, Michigan. When I first saw this church my eyes were immediately drawn to all the neat details. The building has lots of carved stone and a variety of colors, mostly in the domes. The HDR image I posted yesterday tried to convey the colors and today’s image is focused on the details.


One of the things which surprised me on my family’s visit to Marquette, Michigan was the interesting older architecture of many of the buildings. I was also surprised at the number and variety of churches for a town of approximately 20,000. It wasn’t too surprising to see a Catholic church, however, since the city was named after Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary. What I love about this church is all the detail work, especially the tile work on the domed towers. I took several pictures, both of the entire structure as well as some of the detail work.


Ringside

Posted under Michigan

Ringside

Over the 4th of July weekend, I spent a couple of days in Marquette, Michigan. We were in Marquette to check out the campus of Northern Michigan University as a possible university for our youngest son. The town is quite interesting and has a number of interesting older buildings with some terrific architecture. When we got there, I took a short walk around the town. As I was wandering around town I saw this cool sign for Ringside Fitness, a local fitness facility and thought it would make a nice image. For processing I started with one of the darker presets from Silver Efex Pro 2 and gave the image a rough border. I wanted to give the image a bit of an old time grungy feeling.


Ore Dock

Posted under HDR

The ore dock in Marquette, Michigan is a pretty imposing structure. It’s probably at least two freighters in length and is this lovely mass of repeating concrete and metal elements. I took several shots, some wide, and some close-up. For this image, I shot 5 exposures to use for an HDR image since I thought that the HDR might really bring out the character in the concrete and metal. When processing, I also worked on a black and white version which I might post either here or on my 500px page. I think black and white works really well with this shot to give it an industrial look, but I like the look and color of the rusty concrete in the color version.


‘Billmaier’

Posted under Michigan

'Billmaier'

This past weekend my wife and youngest son took a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to visit the campus of Northern Michigan University. NMU is located in Marquette, Michigan, which is a terrific little town. The town is located on the shores of Lake Superior and has a wonderful collection of historic buildings and interesting sights. This shot was taken down in what is known as the lower harbor. The lower harbor has an old ‘ore dock’ which is a large structure used to load taconite pellets on to large ships. Marquette has two of these docks, one is still in use. The image shows a tug boat parked in front of the dock.


Gears

Posted under Greenfield Village

Gears

have this thing for anything old, mechanical or metal. When I was at Greenfield Village this past weekend for their annual Motor Muster, I had the pleasure of seeing many things which fit that description. One of the coolest places in the museum (in my opinion) is the Armington & Sims machine shop. The shop has a great collection of original machine shop tools and is actually a functioning job shop for items needed at the museum. I was using a Nikon 105mm Macro lens that I had rented from LensPro To Go and I made a pass through the shop to see if I could get some interesting images. One of my favorites from this trip is this shot of some tool which had a great collection of gears. I didn’t have my tripod with me that day, but if I did I would have taken some brackets for an HDR image. The shop is too dark to take handheld exposures.


When I went to the Classic Car Club of American car show at the Gilmore Car Museum I took both of my camera bodies. I’ve been using primarily my Nikon D700, but I still use my Olympus E3 on occasion. I had equipped the E3 with my 50mm F2 Zuiko Macro lens, an old manual lens that I used to use with my Olympus OM4 back in my film days. It was a nice change to use a completely manual set up. Focusing was manual, as was setting the aperture. When I changed aperture, the lens closed down and made the viewfinder darker, which made focusing a little more challenging. I like this 50 macro on the E3 because at the 2x crop factor its like using a 100mm lens. This lens also takes really nice images.