Raking Shadows, photo © Richard Thompson
Probably the coolest Halloween photo I’ve ever seen. I would totally go to a movie with this on the poster. Richard says this is Sunset over farmlands in Dundee, Michigan. He has another in the same vein titled Darkness Looms.
Happy Halloween, Michigan … hope the treats far outnumber the tricks!
MSU Aerial Photo, photo by clayton_busbey
Be sure to take a look at other photos Clayton took on this day – they include aerial views of Lansing & Mackinac Island.
I’ve certainly given the University of Michigan and the Big House ample time here on Michigan in Pictures. Looking back, I see that the football stadium at my alma mater, Michigan State University, has received rather less attention. What can I say – my grandmother was a dyed-in-blue Wolverine fan. As usual, you can get lots of the basic information from Wikipedia’s entry for Spartan Stadium in East Lansing which begins:
In the early 1920s school officials decided to construct a new stadium to replace Old College Field. The resulting stadium was ready in the fall of 1923 with a capacity of 14,000. Over the years the stadium grew. In 1935 the seating capacity increased to 26,000 and the facility was dedicated as Macklin Field. John Macklin, football coach from 1911-15, put Michigan State football on the map with a 29-5 record over five seasons with victories over big name programs such as Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin. After admittance into the Big Ten in 1948, Michigan State increased stadium capacity to 51,000 and the field was renamed Macklin Stadium. With Spartan football attracting national attention under Clarence “Biggie” Munn and Hugh “Duffy” Daugherty, 9,000 seats were added in 1956. The following season upper decks were added to the east and west sides boosting the capacity to 76,000. That same season Michigan State dropped the name Macklin Stadium in favor of Spartan Stadium.
In August of 2005 a press box and luxury seating were added – here are photos and renderings of the addition to Spartan Stadium and the page on Spartan Stadium at Ballpark.com (has a cool view of the stadium on game day).
For more photos, head over to Flickr where Patrick Power (love the Spartan Stadium Sundown!) and Alex (excellent Spartan Stadium Panorama) each have a ton of photos of the stadium. Also look in of the Michigan State University Fans pool on Flickr and get some shots of on the field action from the Spartans Football photo gallery at MSU.
Detroit, photo by JoeJoeSmoe.
Five photographers will be at the Exposure.Detroit show next Friday. Only four had been featured on Michigan in Pictures and I couldn’t have that, so here’s one of my favorite photos from Joe Alisa aka JoeJoeSmoe. The photo is from fall of 2006 – be sure to check out Joe’s photography site for more pics!
…and because I can’t resist, here’s more Detroit manhole covers from Drainspotting.
Exposure.Detroit Presents!
When: November 9th 7pm-10pm
Who: Cris Rea, Joe Alisa, Ralph Krawczyk Jr., Rhonda McElroy, Sue Fraser
Where: The Bean & Leaf Cafe, Royal Oak
Music by: Theatre of the Absurd
In the Michigan Immense Public Park, photo by Andy McFarlane
Welcome to a “Soapbox Saturday” on Michigan in Pictures, where your host takes you a little ways past “ain’t it cool” towards “ain’t it a shame.” Don’t worry though – it’s still cool. If it doesn’t seem cool – please click the photo above. I figured that since I was going to be sharing some personal feelings, I probably should use one of my own photos. This photo of my daughter exploring something on the Lake Michigan beach was taken a few years ago at the base of Pyramid Point in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I had posted it in gratitude to the Michigan Supreme Court for upholding our right to walk the Great Lakes shore.
Flash forward to the present day when Michigan’s regulators appear poised to permit the first metallic sulfide mine in Michigan. Several years ago, my friend Dick Huey and a few others started a group called Save the Wild UP when Kennecott Minerals, a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto (one of the world’s largest polluters), began the process of securing a permit for a sulfide mine north of Marquette. The proposed mine is located directly under the Salmon-Trout River on the wild and beautiful Yellow Dog Plains. This is state land, our land, and the Salmon-Trout flows just a few miles through it and then empties into Lake Superior. Over that time I’ve been working for them to maintain their web site and have learned a thing or two about “acid mining”.
Iron and copper mining are things that helped forge the character of the Upper Peninsula. You can think of traditional mining as picking the chocolate chips out of a cookie. Sulfide mining is like getting the sugar out of a cookie – a chemical rather than mechanical process that yields a dust as a by-product. If this dust mixes with water and air, it forms sulfuric acid aka battery acid. There has never been a sulfide mine with the potential to pollute ground or surface water that failed to do so. Sulfide mining has polluted 40% of the watersheds in the West, and you can read more of the facts about metallic sulfide mining at Save the Wild UP (has a nice video if you prefer).
A process with 100% failure rate of protecting water located directly under a pristine river that flows into the largest body of freshwater in the world seems like a bad idea. When you realize that they also plan to blow the sulfide dust into the air and that there are hundreds of other prospected sites waiting in the wings, it becomes terrifying. Michigan and the UP have a lot of challenges right now, but something we do have going for us is our water and wild places and the tourism dollars and jobs they generate. The picture to the right is a result of sulfide mining from Sudbury, Ontario. Multiply that across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and consider how many thousands of tourism jobs and millions of tourism and tax dollars might be lost.
One of the people who has considered this is a wonderful musician named Daisy May. She has donated a song called A Letter from Downstream to Save the Wild UP and I hope you take the time to listen to it and see the photos that folks have shared about what Michigan’s water means to them.
If you’re a Flickr member, consider adding a photo to the Downstream group.
Justice & Monroe, photo by nofunk.
…in Downtown Grand Rapids. Part of Nolan’s Grand Rapids set.
I found places where they say “The historic Justice & Monroe building in Grand Rapids” but I can’t find any history. Anyone know anything about this very cool looking building?
raven hill, photo by Latitude 45.
Every couple of days I look to see what people are looking at on Michigan in Pictures. The Michigan Wallpaper page is always at the top, and you can count on seeing favorites like Slumpy and the Big Boy Graveyard and The Southdown Challenger in there.
And just about every day in the fall – including today – Martin’s Fall Leaves photo is right there, reminding me to go look at his great photos of Petoskey and nearby.
Wisdom of the crowd I guess.
This photo might be from the Raven Hill Discovery Center near East Jordan.
UPDATE: Martin let me know that it’s from the Raven Ridge Nature Preserve of the Little Traverse Conservancy, which was purchased by the Conservancy and the Discovery Center. Click that link to see a cool map (select Raven Ridge) and learn a little more about this and other preserves!
Monocle Lake, Hiawatha National Forest, photo by UofMBlonde415.
This photo is one of a number of photos Beth took on Saturday in the Straits & Soo.
Hunt’s Guide to the UP has this to say about Monocle Lake:
The centerpiece of this attractive natural area in the Hiawatha National Forest is 172-acre Monocle Lake. It’s stocked for fishing with walleye, bass, pike, and perch. There’s a beach, boat launch, and picnic area with charcoal grills. Lots of improvements, including a floating fishing dock and hard gravel paths, make Monocle Lake outstanding for handicapped people.
A two-mile hiking trail loop starts at the picnic area and goes through natural hardwoods intermixed with some very old white pines and hemlocks. The trail’s first 1,100 feet are fully accessible, including the boardwalk carrying the trail across a wetland and beaver dam … Ospreys (also called fish hawks) have a nest in the area, so it’s not unusual to see them catching fish in the wetland shallows.
There’s more about the lake on the Hiawatha National Forest Monocle Lake Campground page, but I couldn’t find the answer to my question of how Monocle Lake got its name. If you know, please share it in the comments!!
More photos in the Michigan Fall Wallpaper series.
Upper Falls, photo by rckrawczykjr.
Ralph recently returned from an autumn trip to the UP (slideshow). When I saw his double exposure of Tahquamenon’s Upper Falls, I knew I wasn’t going to be waiting any longer to give a shout out to the next Exposure.Detroit show.
Exposure.Detroit Presents!
When: November 9th 7pm-10pm
Who: Cris Rea, Joe Alisa, Ralph Krawczyk Jr., Rhonda McElroy, Sue Fraser
Where: The Bean & Leaf Cafe, Royal Oak
If you can, be sure to show up to see work from Ralph and the other very fine photographers in the show!
See more Tahquamenon Falls photos on Michigan in Pictures and don’t miss other photos in the Michigan Fall Wallpaper series.
The Mean Streets, photo by Brian.H.
Brian is a member of the Allegan Camera Club.
Wikipedia’s entry for Allegan says that Allegan has a population around 5,000 and is the county seat of Allegan County. It was apparently also named by Michigan historian Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in 1837 to sound like a Native American word.
Neither Wikipedia or the City of Allegan have much to say about the meanness of Allegan’s streets.
Michigan in Pictures 