Given the veritable explosion of aurora borealis & nighttime photos due to the fact phone cameras are finally allowing people to take low light pictures, I think it’s important for folks to understand that even though you can’t get results like you see from some of the best northern lights photographers, these photographers aren’t faking or cheating. They are simply working with much more photo data & understanding of how to apply it than most people.
Monika shares “The difference between a phone shot and a camera shot, each taken several minutes apart. I took quite a few phone shots that night, esp as I worked my way up the coast of the Keweenaw in 28mph winds. In each phone shot, I see noise, blown pixels, and black feathering. Shooting on a camera in raw, we have to edit to put the contrast, color, and texture back into it. It looks very milky before editing and it takes a lot of work.
Cyber Monday is a term coined almost 20 years ago by Ellen Davis as the name for the phenomenon of people returning on the post-Thanksgiving Monday to shop with their high-speed Internet connections at work. It’s become the biggest online shopping day of the year & the second biggest shopping day of overall.
I really really hope that for Cyber Monday you think about buying prints, calendars & other items from the amazing photographers featured on Michigan in Pictures! There are all kinds of challenges including AI that make it harder and harder to earn a living with your camera!
Happy Black Friday! It’s an especially happy one for many since for the first time in eight years, we aren’t mourning a Lions Thanksgiving loss!! Yesterday Detroit also hosted another successful Thanksgiving Day Parade on Woodward Avenue (click for some video highlights) which got me thinking about the roots of this holiday tradition.
Thanksgiving parades were created in the early 20th Century by big department store chains to signal consumers that it was time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. The Holidays at Hudson’s video on Detroit PBS explains that the Motor City was no exception. Hudson’s Department Store provided the staff, resources to help launch the annual parade in 1924. A century later, the Parade remains one of the largest in the country.
While you have to donate to view the whole video, the trailer for Holidays at Hudson’s has some great pics & info. One cool fact is that at its apex when a quarter of a million children a year would visit Santa every year at Hudson’s, they were one of the first stores in the country to offer a choice of Caucasian, Black, Hispanic or other Santas. I’ve got a some old pics, a couple parade photos & a video of the Big Heads below!
Hudson’s Float in front of the new Hudson’s by Andrew McFarlane
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Dusting off this feature from 13 years ago (wow!) to help set the table for tomorrow.
Wikipedia’s entry for the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) explains that this large, deciduous tree of the beech family was once one of the eastern United States dominant hardwoods before it was nearly wiped out by chestnut blight. Curiously enough, one of the few pockets to survive were some 600 to 800 large trees in northern lower Michigan. Chestnut Growers, Inc. is a 37 member cooperative based in Michigan explain the difference between edible sweet chestnuts & non-edible horse chestnuts (the spiky ones with the burrs) & offer preparation tips & cooking instructions:
In Europe, chestnuts are consumed in a wide variety of dishes, from soups, stews, and stuffing to fancy deserts. Matter of fact, chestnut flour is the secret to many of the fancy French pastries. In other parts of the world, such as China, the chestnut is a staple food in the peoples’ diet. Chestnuts have about half the calories of other nuts and have the lowest fat content of all the main edible nuts. Chestnuts have only four to five percent fat as compared to sixty-two percent for the hazelnut and seventy-one percent for the pecan. In composition and food value, the chestnut, with its high carbohydrate content of about seventy-eight percent, is more akin to cereal grains, such as wheat, than to nuts with a low carbohydrate content. Since chestnuts are starchy rather than oily, they are readily digestible when roasted or boiled.
Read on for more and suggestions on cooking. They take orders for fresh chestnuts and ship beginning in October, and are at farm markets through the fall.
Julie bought these Michigan-grown beauties at Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor. Check them out background bigalicious and see more in Julie’s Food gallery on Flickr where she shares some preparation photos & the finished product!
Yesterday Bedrock and General Motors announced a conceptual plan to redevelop the Renaissance Center (RenCen) and 27 acres along the Detroit riverfront. They say that the plan “preserves the essence of Detroit’s skyline, ‘right sizes’ the RenCen’s footprint, and connects the site to the heart of downtown. The surrounding entertainment district would become a vibrant waterfront destination, drawing international visitors and featuring restaurants, hospitality, residential and market space—complementing Detroit’s award-winning Riverwalk, which draws more than 3.5 million annual visitors to the city.”
Check out the renderings & Detroit News excerpt below for an idea of what’s in store & please share your thoughts. Personally, I’m glad that they’re preserving some of this truly iconic structure but honestly worried that it could end up being a terrifying albatross in the event of an economic downturn. Much more about the Renaissance Center on Michigan in Pictures.
It’s been a minute since I’ve featured a photo by the amazing Joe Gall aka Camera Jesus. He shared this back in January of 2023. Follow him on Facebook & Instagram for the latest and for sure head over to CameraJesus.com to view & purchase his photos including this beauty of a supermoon rising over the Ren Cen!!
The Renaissance Center would shrink to three towers with residential, office and hotel tenancy to create space for a six-acre riverfront park in a more than $1.6 billion redevelopment plan dependent on $250 million in state support that would make billionaire mortgage mogul Dan Gilbert’s real estate firm shared owner of the complex with current owner General Motors … Gilbert is contributing $1 billion in equity and debt, and GM is providing $250 million after having invested $1.5 billion into the building during its ownership. A new entity owning the site will reflect each party’s contribution toward the redevelopment, said Dave Massaron, GM’s vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship.
Another Thanksgiving staple that Michigan produces are cranberries, which are one of just a few fruits native to North America. While we do have about 300 acres of cranberries, there is another “cranberry” that the cranberry people want to make perfectly clear is not an actual cranberry. Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds blog has a great article on the High Bush Cranberry that says (in part):
The High Bush Cranberry is actually a Viburnum (Viburnum trilobum) and a cousin of the elderberry. Both are in the greater Honeysuckle Family and have a characteristic musky odor. That family by the way straddles the edibility line, with some members edible and others not, some tasty and some not. As one might suspect by the name, the High Bush Cranberry has tart fruit. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager along side Euell Gibbons, wrote they require a “conditioned palate” to appreciate.
In North America the High Bush Cranberry is found in Canada and the northern half of the United States plus, oddly, New Mexico. It is not as that friendly to wildlife as one might suspect. The fruit persists into the winter because they are not on the top of birds’ preferred food. Birds like the berries after they soften and ferment. White-Tailed deer also browse on the twigs and leaves. For humans the berries are high in Vitamin C, about 30 milligrams per 100 grams.Viburnum trilobum has several disputed botanical names and several mistaken common names including Pimbina, Mooseberry, Cranberry Tree, Cranberry Bush, American Cranberry, and Squashberry.
Read on for lots more including identification tips. They do say that Highbush cranberries taste better when harvested after the first frost so please let me know if you try them! You can also buy Highbush cranberry bushes from your local Conservation District like Van Buren County. There’s much more Michigan Thanksgiving to feast on at Michigan in Pictures too!
Dian took the top photo in Greenville (just northeast of Grand Rapids) and the one below on the Betsie Valley Trail in Benzie County. See her latest pics on her Flickr!
Timothy took this photo in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore last month & shares:
The color yellow holds a special place in my heart. While my son was in Pre-K, he took a test that involved identifying colors. I happened to be there for it. He identified every color correctly…except yellow. He repeatedly got it wrong. I could see his teacher becoming increasingly confused as she graded his test. Before she could say anything, Lewis asked her, “Why didn’t I choose ‘yellow’?”
“Why?,” she responded. I had no idea what he was going to say, but I expected it to be good.
Lewis proceeded to inform her in the most matter-of-factly way possible, “It’s the only color God doesn’t like.”
I was pretty sure his position wasn’t scripturally defensible, but I couldn’t stop laughing. (His teacher was not amused by either of us.) So, Lewis, if you’re reading along, enjoy this forest scene full of blue leaves.
Skubal is the fifth Tiger to win the award, joining Max Scherzer (2013), Justin Verlander (2011), Willie Hernández (1984) and Denny McLain (1968 and ’69). The dominant southpaw capped his pitching Triple Crown season on Wednesday by winning the AL Cy Young Award in a unanimous vote from members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America
His 18 wins were the most by a Tiger since Scherzer had as many in 2014. His 2.39 ERA was the lowest by a qualified Detroit starter since Mark Fidrych’s incredible rookie season of 1976. His 5.9 fWAR trailed only Verlander’s 2009 and ’10 seasons as the most by a Tigers pitcher in his age-27 season or younger since 1971. His 6.3 bWAR not only led MLB pitchers, it ranked seventh among all AL players. Skubal became the 22nd player in Major League history to win a pitching Triple Crown. (and first since Verlander in 2011!)
Coyotes are found in every county in Michigan, something I learned on a Christmas Day 2019 bike ride in Detroit when a coyote & I surprised each other on the eastside! The Michigan DNR shares a little bit about living with coyotes in Michigan, including the fact that it is critical for their well being as well as the safety of our pets & farm animals that they retain their natural fear of people. To do this:
Eliminate outside food sources like garbage or pet food
Clear out brush piles that provide hiding places for small mammals and birds
And for sure keep small pets indoors or accompany them outside!
If you do see an unwanted coyote in your area, you can try to scare it off by yelling, clapping or making other loud noises.
Most coyotes are afraid of people and will leave if you frighten them, but if they don’t leave, remember that they are wild animals and also be aware that there are coyote/wolf crossbreeds in Michigan known as “coywolf” and they are a whole different beast!
Mark shared this photo back in 2016, saying that Mr. Coyote paid a visit to their house looking for Mr. Pussycat, who was smartly hiding under the coffee table! Follow @downstreamer7 on Instagram for Mark’s latest!
PS: Here’s a shot of a coyote pup I took years ago.
Holtec International, the company that owns and wants to restart the closed Palisades nuclear plant, is already working on preliminary site plans for a pair of 300-megawatt SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) previously announced for the industrial site along Lake Michigan in Covert Township.
…Advanced nuclear technology expert Staffan Qvist, Swedish engineer and scientist, said SMRs come with “inherent safety” measures using the basic physics of the plant’s design and engineering. He said SMRs will generate smaller loads of electricity than classic nuclear plants but will cost much less to build. Qvist said the Holtec SMR-300 is a primarily water-cooled design, and he likened it to a shrunken down version of a conventional pressurized water reactor (but)… Nuclear critic Kevin Kamps, of watchdog group Beyond Nuclear, said trying to restart the old nuclear plant and co-locate new modular units was setting up the site for “Fukushima-like domino-effect meltdowns.”
Michigan in Pictures 