Better than TV #7, photo by norjam8.
Norm writes: The next in my lone bench series. If you look closely, you can see the snow blowing across the frozen lake. And yes, it was very cold. This was handheld, so It does have some slight hdr alignment issues. Oh well. When it’s warmer, I’ll take the time to pull out my tripod.
This is the latest photo in Norm’s cool set of HDR photos titled Better than TV.
Vintage bridge, photo by pnygirl1.
BJ writes Playing around with some techniques – liked how this effect captured the old wooden bridge…like it was captured back in time. She has more views of this and other bridges (and a ton more photos).
The Michigan Historical Markers page on the Fallasburg Bridge (includes map) has the text of the marker:
John W. and Silas S. Fallas settled here in 1837, founded a village which soon boasted a chair factory, sawmill, and gristmill. About 1840 the first of several wooden bridges was placed across the Flat River, but all succumbed in a short time to high water and massive spring ice jams. Bridge builder Jared N. Bresee of Ada was given a contract in 1871 to build the present structure. Constructed at a cost of $1500, the bridge has lattice work trusses made of white pine timbers. As in all covered bridges, the roof and siding serve to protect the bridge timbers from rot. Repairs in 1905 and 1945 have kept the bridge safe for traffic for one hundred years.
You can learn a bunch more about the bridge from Michael Frazier’s Covered Bridges of Michigan, get a surprising amount of information and links from Wikipedia’s entry on the Fallasburg Bridge and get details on Fallasburg Park from Kent County Parks.
Encrusted Lighthouse, photo by taterfalls.
The bitter cold has frozen Lake Michigan and allowed Tate King to grab this awesome view of the light at Grand Haven. You have to check this one out bigger!
Here’s a post with another view & more information about the Grand Haven Lighthouse.
Diego Rivera With Patrons, photo by anikarenina.
anikarenina asks Is your cultural institution incendiary?
I assume that’s a reference to the incendiary art of Diego Rivera. The Detroit Institute of Arts is home to one of the most famous collection of Diego Rivera murals. The Diego Rivera Web Museum writes that:
Diego Rivera’s legacy to modern mexican art was decisive in murals and canvas; he was a revolutionary painter looking to take art to the big public, to streets and buildings, managing a precise, direct, and realist style, full of social content.
run~~~~~~~~~~~~, photo by noxipoo.
According to the DNR’s Park List, Warren Dunes State Park provides 1,952 acres of recreational opportunities along the beautiful shore of Lake Michigan in southwestern Michigan. The rugged dune formation rises 260 feet above the lake and offers spectacular views and excellent for hang gliding. The park has three miles of shoreline, six miles of hiking trails and is open year-round.
So you could go out there and enjoy the dunes in winter too … just be sure to dress a little warmer. This photo makes an excellent background for seasonally affected desktops as well!
Chippewa River, photo by Lisa Yanick
If you click the photo above, blogger Eric Baerran of Among the Trees will take you down to the Chippewa River in Mt. Pleasant with a cool fusion of photographer Lisa Yanick’s great photos of the river with spoken words, sounds from the river and Bob Busch’s music.
Be sure to click the link for “the cleaner version” and also check out Eric’s two part feature on canoeing the river a couple years ago (part 1 and part 2).
I got a call yesterday from Grace Dickinson. In the course of talking with her, I found that she had a web site where her photography and the photography of her father, Frederick W. Dickinson, is on display. Fred is one of my all time favorite photographers and I had the chance to sit down with him years ago and talk about his life and work. It appears in Reflection: The Lens of Memory and you might enjoy it.
The above photo of Leland’s Fishtown is hand-colored and, according to the Dickinson Gallery in the Sleeping Bear Dunes:
This technique of hand coloring was widely used in previous years. The same process was also used in tinting/hand coloring high school senior pictures. The paint is transparent and oil based. The colors are applied to the black and white photograph with cotton and blended over the image without obscuring the image. The detail work in small area is done photo colored pencils. Hand colored landscape photos have a pleasing effect with its muted shades of color.
You can see more work and purchase photos from the Dickinson Gallery web site.
Here’s one of many, many photos from the Grand Rapids Auto Show on Flickr.
Today on Absolute Michigan we also have a multimedia presentation from the 2007 Michigan International Auto Show floor. Check it out!
photo by Shawn Malone, LakeSuperiorPhoto.com
About this photo, Shawn writes:
Storm was 40 knot NW gales creating 10-15 ft waves at Presque Isle Park in Marquette, MI. Water appears that color (glass green/blue) under those conditions due to gray sky, water depth among other things. It’s very brutal to stand out there and try to photograph with ice pellets hitting you in the face … water getting in your equipment from freezing spray, steadying a camera in those winds. After going to that spot many times in similar conditions, I couldn’t recreate that wave pattern if I tried 1000 times over. This is one of my most popular images, and I consider a gift from a higher power. Most recently, It was chosen for “Art on the Rocks” Fine art show poster 2006 and Lake Superior Magazine calendar 2006.
LakeSuperiorPhoto.com is absolutely packed with photos of Superior and the UP by Shawn & Brian Malone (bio page with cool magazine spread!). In addition to a lot more photos of waves and storms on Lake Superior, you can also find shots of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, events like the UP 200 Sled Dog Race, Northern Lights and an absolutely amazing number of pictures of towns, trails and all facets of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Go there, you won’t be disappointed!
2006.06.11 – Water Tower – Novi – 004, photo by ercy.
This is just one of the photos in the Michigan Water Towers group on Flickr. It might seem a little silly to have a collection of water towers, but (in Ercy’s apt phrasing) water towers are reminders of paths we’ve taken.
Since Wikipedia pretty much has the theory and history of water towers covered, here’s a bit on the Novi Special. Novi is a suburb located to the northwest of Detroit and according to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America of Novi, it’s also the place where:
Ed & Bud Winfield designed and built a 181 cubic inch supercharged V-8 engine in 1938. It was arguably the most advanced piston engine in the world. It was this engine that became the famous Novi V-8 and powered a series of Novi Specials at Indianapolis from the 1940’s through the 1960’s. Even after the last Novi Special raced in 1965, the name has been associated with speed and power.
Click the Novi Special below for more details from the Motorsports Hall of Fame. If you click the car when you get there, you can see a nice photo of the last Novi Special ever made. (if you visit the Hall, you can see the actual car!)
Michigan in Pictures 