Fishtown 1940, Fred Dickinson

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Fishtown, Leland Michigan 1940, photo by Fred Dickinson

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.

Mustang @ the Grand Rapids Auto Show

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Mustang

Mustang, photo by Mac Girl.

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!

The Novi Special Water Tower

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

2006.06.11 - Water Tower - Novi - 004

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!)

Looking Back on Detroit’s Super Bowl

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Winterblast

Winterblast, photo by Allan M.

Allan’s photo of the brightly lit Detroit Winter Blast festivities was the most popular photo for “Super Bowl XL” on Flickr.

I’m wondering one year later, how you think the Super Bowl impacted the city of Detroit. I asked someone the other day what they recall and (to my less than surprise) they took home “Jerome Bettis is from Detroit“. Did it make a difference for the city of Detroit and Michigan? Post your thoughts in the comments!

You can get a bunch more photos from the 2006 Super Bowl on Michigan in Pictures and read a locker room full of Super Bowl XL articles at Absolute Michigan.

.closed for the season.

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

.closed for the season.

.closed for the season., photo by tEdGuY49.

According to the tags, this photo was taken along US-23 in (or near) the town of Oscoda on the Lake Huron shore.

I kind of sat on this photo for a couple weeks as I had just blogged one from Ted. Looking back through the pictures from Ted that we’ve featured, I realize that he has a special gift for seeing the bright things.

Lake Michigan Ice

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Lake Michigan Ice

Lake Michigan Ice, photo by ojoyous1.

She has a few more shots of the icy Lake Michigan shoreline.

Almost Frozen, heavy on the “Almost”

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Almost Frozen

Almost Frozen, photo by suesue2.

Sue says that Stony Creek Lake (at the Huron-Clinton Stony Creek Metropark is not quite ready for ice skating or ice fishing.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources would like to underline that warning to ice fishing and snowmobile enthusiasts:

“Just because a lake or stream is frozen doesn’t mean the ice is safe,” said Lt. Creig Grey, marine safety and education supervisor for the DNR Law Enforcement Division. “Ice fishing has its own set of safety rules that if not followed, can cause a day of fishing to end in tragedy.”

According to Grey, you can’t always tell the strength of ice simply by its look, its thickness, the temperature or whether or not it is covered with snow. New ice, he said, generally is much stronger than old ice; a couple of inches of new clear ice may be strong enough to support you, though a foot of old, air-bubbled ice will not.

“Clear ice that has a bluish tint is the strongest,” Grey said. “Ice formed by melted and refrozen snow appears milky, is very porous and very weak.”

Three Faces of the Barton Dam

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Barton Dam (Photomatix HDR)

Barton Dam (Photomatix HDR), photo by jhoweaa.

The photographer has posted three versions of this photo of the Barton Dam in Ann Arbor and is interested in hearing which of the three folks prefer. They also write “I really like this dam. It was designed by University of Michigan Dean of Architecture Emil Lorch and built in 1912” and provide a link to this great historical photo of the Barton Dam being built.

Here are the other two images (original and normal HDR):

A visit to Cranbrook House and Gardens

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Untitled, photo by Rhonda_Marie.

Last weekend, the Exposure.Detroit group on Flickr held a photography meetup at Cranbrook. Here is a link to many more great photos taken at Cranbrook.

Cranbrook House and Gardens in Bloomfield Hills is the heart of the over 300-acre National Historic Landmark Cranbrook campus. The English Arts and Crafts-style Cranbrook House was designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn in 1908 for Detroit News publisher George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth. The home is the oldest surviving manor in the metro Detroit area. According to the Cranbrook House and Gardens site:

The Booths commissioned the finest artisans, craftsmen and studios of the period to furnish the house with handcrafted furniture, tapestries, tiles, stained and leaded glass, and other works of fine and decorative art.

The 40 acres of gardens that surround Cranbrook House were originally designed by George Booth to entice visitors to savor the serenity of the spring and summer months. From the symmetry of the Sunken Garden to the scent of the herbaceous garden to the casual beauty of the bog garden, there is something to capture everyone’s interest. Sculpture, fountains and architectural fragments enhance the setting with spacious lawns, specimen trees, and a lake stretching out beyond the fieldstone walls.

Also see Cranbrook’s History in the Cranbrook Archives and How one man’s bad luck paved way for creation of Cranbrook from the Detroit News Rearview Mirror. Also see this map of the Cranbrook area with geotagged photos.

longtime friends, like barns and red

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Like Barns & Red

longtime friends by markmarko

Charles Leik, editor of The Barn Journal says that the question of “Why are barns red?” is their all-time most popular FAQ:

Ferric oxide (rust), a primary component of red paint, is inexpensive and this appealed to the thrifty farmers of New England and New York State. Red is the predominant barn color in that region. Natives of these areas were the early settlers of the Great Lakes states migrating there via the Erie Canal and the Lakes. I grew up in central Michigan and there were only a few non-red barns in our area. Two nearby farmers had gray buildings and soon one of them opted for white, which was also a rare color. I conclude that the early settlers brought their red barn tradition (and thriftiness) with them, and this was followed by the later immigrants (Germans in our area) who came directly from Europe.

How Stuff Works adds that “Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns.”