I originally shared this super cool tilt-shift photo way back on October 29, 2010. When I came across it again last night while looking for a photo for another post, the synchronicity was too good to ignore!
See more fun stuff in Dave’s Random Weirdness gallery on Flickr & stay spooky!
Seul Choix Point Lighthouse by Gary Brink
The Seul Choix Point Lighthouse (aerial map) is operated by the Gulliver Historical Society and DNR as a park & museum. Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light’s page for Seul Choix Pointe Light explains:
At the dawn of the 1880’s, the volume of maritime traffic passing between harbors on the western shore of Lake Michigan and Green Bay and the Straits of Mackinac exploded. While the St. Helena Island light station lighted the eastern entry into the Straits, mariners were forced to navigate blind along 100 miles of unlighted upper peninsula coastline before the Poverty Island light came into view at the western end of the passage. With treacherous storms frequent at both ends of the navigation season, mariners frequently chose to ride out such storms in the lee of points protruding into the lake along this 100-mile stretch of unlighted shoreline.
Seeking to both make identification of such a refuge easier, and to mark the shore at an interim point between the two existing lights, the Lighthouse Board recommended that establishment of a light station on the end of Point Patterson, approximately midway between St. Helena Island and Manistique.
It took nearly 20 years to complete – read on for more about what was apparently the Cadillac of lighthouses. The light is also reputed to be haunted, and you can read a lot more about that in The Haunting of Seul Choix Point Lighthouse on Michigan in Pictures.
Gary took this back in October of 2011. See more great pics in his showcase on Flickr.
Hey Argus fans – the Argus Museum is having their annual conference October 7-10, 2026!
Lighthouse ruins at Cheboygan State Park, MI, taken with Argus C3 by Mark O’Brien
I’m updating yet another post from the distant past (19 years distant!) to tell you about the Argus Camera Company of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Wikipedia’s very much incomplete entry on the Argus Camera Company says:
Argus is an American maker of cameras and photographic products, founded in 1936 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Argus originated as a subsidiary of the International Radio Corporation (IRC), founded by Charles Verschoor. Its best-known product was the C3 rangefinder camera, which enjoyed a 27-year production run and became one of the top-selling cameras in history. The company’s Model A was the first low-cost 35 mm camera in the United States.
The link above for the Argus C3 (aka “The Brick”) is much more complete and says the simple design and ready availability of the C3 makes it widely used even today. While that entry says the C3 was responsible for establishing 35mm, Stephen Gandy of CameraQuest hands that title to the first camera Argus made – the Argus A, declaring:
In MY always not so objective mind at least, the Argus A is undoubtedly the 2nd most important 35mm camera of all time– second only to the Leica A. If you think about it, that’s a pretty amazing legacy for a simple little Bakelite camera from a Michigan USA radio factory. It really is.
How does Argus deserve this impressive ranking? Easy, they bribed me. Unfortunately, not with money. Argus paid me off in Photographic Heritage. Building on the astounding sellout success of the Argus A, Argus sold MILLIONS of Argi, thereby establishing 35mm as the serious Amateur’s film format of choice in the largest photography market in the world, America.
If you are interested in learning more about this legendary camera, allow me to direct you to the Argus Museum which is located on the second floor of the Argus I building at 525 W William St, Ann Arbor. Doors automatically open at 8 AM until 5 PM every Monday through Friday except for all major holidays. Staff is only available in person on Friday. As stated above, the Argus Museum is having their annual conference October 7-10, 2026.
You might also want to check the local bookstore for a copy of Argomania: A Look At Argus Cameras And The Company That Made Them by Henry Gambino. The promotional copy explains:
Argus’ founder, Charles Verschoor, did not establish an empire, as did George Eastman. Nor did he enjoy a particularly long tenure as the head of the company he founded. Unlike Oscar Barnack, he did not invent anything particularly new, yet he had a tremendous impact on the photographic industry. He revolutionized the scope of the industry, not only from a technical standpoint, but even more so from a marketing perspective.
Mark originally shared this photo on Flickr, but he has moved on to Instagram. You can also tune in for his very engaging thoughts and activities in photography, camera collecting, current events, and photographic tips at randomphoto.blogspot.com where he of course has a whole lot of photos & writing about Argus cameras. Enjoy!
I shared this photo waaaaaay back on August 19, 2009! Since my old posts are becoming inaccessible as the modern web leaves them behind, I’m trying to “save” at least one a week. I love Jim’s writings about the photos he takes and thought you would as well. Enjoy!
Fog rolls off of Lake Superior and up the Grand Sable Dunes on the Pictured Rocks Lakeshore as seen from the Log Slide Overlook west of Grand Marais in the Upper Peninsula Of Michigan. The Grand Sable Dunes are located on a five mile stretch between the Sable River and Au Sable Point in Alger County. The banks rise up to 275 feet high, created during the last ice age when sand and gravel filled in a deep rift in the glacier. Atop the gravelly banks, sand dunes rise another 80 feet. These are “perched dunes” because they are perched on top of another landform. They were probably formed when wind and waves piled up sand at the edge of Lake Nipissing, the forerunner of Lake Superior.
Check out Jim’s Pictured Rocks or Lake Superior galleries for much more!
an oldie but a goodie for #TBT!
Above is a portrait of Elsie Schuenemann at the wheel of the Christmas Ship, near the Clark Street Bridge on the Chicago River in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The boat carried Christmas trees to Chicago from Michigan. Her father, Captain H. Schuenemann, died when the Rouse Simmons, a ship carrying Christmas trees, sank in 1912.
The trees behind her likely came from the woods of Escanaba. Though the story of Barbara Schuenemann and her three daughters carrying on the tradition of the Christmas Tree Ships has perhaps been a little over-romanticized, there can be little doubt that the Schuenemann family and the many others who participated in the difficult trade of hauling Christmas trees south as the storms of winter closed in were heroes cut from a cloth that isn’t found too often today.
If you’d like to read more about all the Christmas tree ships (there were many more than just the famous Rouse Simmons) I recommend Christmas Tree Ships from Fred Neuschel. He has also written a book called Lives and Legends of the Christmas Tree Ships (available from UM Press). The National Archive also has The Christmas Tree Ship: Captain Herman E. Schuenemann and the Schooner Rouse Simmons that details the Schuenemann’s story.
You can also see Rich Evenhouse’s cool video of diving the Rouse Simmons.
DSC02766_tonemapped, photo by ansonredford.
I thought I’d feature a photo from our Michigan Cover Photos Group. You can add pics to it if you want to have them featured on our Michigan in Pictures Facebook and also the Absolute Michigan Facebook.
Recently we featured Donald’s photo of one of the sculptures on the Wayne County Courthouse. This is one of four that depict Law, Commerce, Agriculture, and Mechanics. They were executed by sculptor J. Massey Rhind.
Check it out background bigtacular and see some more including an amazing HDR of the courrthouse in Donald’s slideshow.
Reflecting Light – Eagle Harbor Lighthouse (Eagle Harbor, MI) by Aaron C. Jors
Our tour of the lighthouses of the Keweenaw Peninsula with Aaron Jors continues with the light at Eagle Harbor.
The Eagle Harbor Lighthouse from Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light tells of the first light built at the western point of Eagle Harbor built in 1850 and the rubble stone keeper’s dwelling with a square white-painted wooden tower integrated into one end of the roof. As with many lights built during the penny-pinching Pleasonton administration, the light was judged to be “laid together in the rudest manner” and targeted for replacement.
Rather than creating a unique set of plans for the new station, Eleventh District Engineer Brevet Brigadier General Orlando M. Poe resurrected a plan which had been previously used on Chambers Island in 1867 and at Eagle Bluff in 1868. After blasting out a hole for the cellar, the masons crafted a two-story dwelling red brick dwelling, 29-foot by 25-foot in plan, with an integrated 44-foot tall tower oriented diagonally into its northeastern corner. The exterior of the first and second stories of the tower were approximately ten feet square with buttressed corners, while the tower’s upper portion consisted of a ten-foot octagon. The tower was double-walled, with a circular inner wall approximately four inches thick and eight feet in diameter. This cylindrical inner wall supported a cast iron spiral staircase which wound from the oil storage room in the cellar to a hatch in the lantern floor. Since these spiral stairs also served as the only means of moving between floors in the dwelling, steel doors provided access to landings on both the first and second floors to prevent the spread of any fire in either the dwelling or tower.
Read on for much more and get information of visiting the lighthouse from the Keweenaw Historical Society.
Check this out bigger and in Aaron’s Lighthouses gallery.
Many (many) more Michigan Lighthouses from Michigan in Pictures.
The Michigan DNR’s page on Northern Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) says:
The tinkling of bells is a popular description of the spring peeper’s spring mating call. Spring peepers are one of the earliest callers among the dozen frog species found in Michigan. During the first warm evenings of spring in late March or early April through May, their distinctive single note, high pitched “peep” is considered a harbinger of spring. The intensity of calling increases and can become a deafening chorus during humid evenings or just after a warm spring rain when many males congregate.
Only the male frogs call. They establish territories near the edge of permanent or ephemeral wetlands. They may call from elevated perches of submerged grass or shrubs near the water. The faster and louder a male sings, the more likely he is to attract a mate.
The female will lay between 750-1,200 eggs. The strings or clumps are attached to twigs and aquatic vegetation. Depending on the temperatures, eggs may hatch within four days or may take up to two weeks during cooler periods. After another two to three months, young tadpoles are fully transformed into young frogs and leave the pond.
They resemble their parents with the most distinctive mark being a dark brown “X” (may be irregular or incomplete on some) on their lighter brown or tan back. They begin feeding on small food items like spiders, mites, ticks, pill bugs, ants, and caterpillars. By the end of the summer, they have reached the adult size of about 1 – 1 1/2 inches. As the days cool, the peepers dig into the soft mud near ponds for the winter. Still, during warm spells into the fall they can be confused and emerge to give their spring mating call.The spring peeper is the most abundant of Michigan’s singing frogs and is common statewide. They prefer damp woodlands, swamps, and marshes. However, they still need protection – local populations around small ponds and wetlands can be highly susceptible to surface water runoff. These waters can carry chemicals, pesticides, or silt that can kill adults, eggs, or tadpoles. Good soil erosion practices and the careful application of pesticides and fertilizers are good for spring peepers.
The most distinctive thing about peepers is their call, which can become deafening in springtime. The Pseudacris crucifer (Spring Peeper) section from UM Animal Diversity Web has a short peeper call from Livingston County, and you can see a peeper peeping in this video.
Some more peeper particulars: Wikipedia’s Spring Peeper entry notes that their calls can be heard from as far as 1 – 2.5 miles depending on the number of peepers in a pond, that peepers generally like to breed when it is closer to dusk and throughout the evening and early morning hours, and that peepers can live up to 3 years in the wild. At Portage Lake in Washtenaw County, Michigan in the 1950s, surveys in March, April, and May found that spring peepers were the most abundant animals. The page on peepers from watersheds.org notes that spring peepers produce glucose (sugar) in their livers that acts as an anti-freeze and is pumped to vital organs including the heart and lungs to allow them to freeze and thaw without developing ice crystals. Our Peeper-pedia on Absolute Michigan has a few more links and a cool video of a Michigan peeper in action.
Check Tim’s photo out bigger and in his PJ Hoffmaster State Park slideshow.
More frogs on Michigan in Pictures.
Mystery!, photo by I am Jacques Strappe.
Yesterday Marjorie went hiking on a mountain near Marquette where she came across this carving that reads R.S. Chamberlin 10 20 1872. She writes:
Near the highest point of the mountain was a small outcrop of rock. This was carved into it — though it had been hidden by grass and pine needles until one in our party found it by chance and cleared it all away.
Check it out bigger, see more photos from the day in her slideshow and if you have ideas as to the identity of R.S. Chamberlin, post them here!
PS: Lots more (including a great profile) from Marjorie on Michigan in Pictures!
Guru Of The Green – Flint, Michigan, photo by J.M.Barclay.
“It’s almost like science fiction at this point.”
~Weather Underground weather historian, Christopher C. Burt
Dr. Jeff Masters flew with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990 and co-founded Ann Arbor-based The Weather Underground in 1995 while working on his Ph.D. He’s Wunderground’s Senior Meteorologist and has been writing some insightful and frankly scary articles about what he calls “Summer in March” which has seen up to a week straight of record high temperatures. Yesterday he wrote:
Since record keeping began in the late 1800s, there have never been so many temperature records broken for spring warmth in a one-week period–and the margins by which some of the records were broken yesterday were truly astonishing. Wunderground’s weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, commented to me yesterday, “it’s almost like science fiction at this point.” A few of the more remarkable records from yesterday:
Pellston, Michigan in the Northern Lower Peninsula is called “Michigan’s Icebox”, since it frequently records the coldest temperatures in the state, and in the entire nation. But the past five days, Pellston has set five consecutive records for hottest March day. Yesterday’s 85° reading broke the previous record for the date (53° in 2007) by a ridiculous 32°, and was an absurd 48°F above average.
The low temperature at Marquette, Michigan was 52° yesterday, which was 3° warmer than the previous record high for the date!
Also don’t miss this article where Jeff looks at how extraordinarily rare for climate locations with 100+ year long periods of records to break records day after day after day.
James snapped this amazing capture of the Guru frozen above some green water left over from St Patrick’s Day at Flint’s Riverbank Park. Check it out bigger and in his free run sun slideshow with some Free Running / Parkour action. He also has a show starting Saturday – details on his Facebook.
