Traverse City Photo Dump

Better late than never :) It took awhile to get through all the pictures and then putting together a blog post takes time, so that's why the photos are appearing almost a month after the event. These aren't in any kind of order; I apologize. Blogger upload is too stupid to make that easy to do.

We went to Sparks BBQ for dinner one night and the ducks around are half-tame. They sit right under your feet practically and wait for food. It was a little weird to be so close to wild animals.

 How cool is this piece of art?  

 The Traverse City State Hospital - Building 50. (Old mental hospital). Now it's shops, offices, and APARTMENTS!!! Can you imagine living in such a beautiful building? I like how the lighting turned out in this picture. 

We went to a little airfield and where does Joe end up? On a roof. Are we surprised? No we are not. 

Another place we went was an apple orchard. They have a variety that is thought to be the oldest in the world; it was around during the time of Jesus! I took a picture of the above variety because it has ties to Lafeyette, where my great-grandmother used to live and my grandmother grew up.
 

10,000 unique glass bottles. 

You can see a doorway on the right side of the last picture. That leads to another small room that also has shelves of bottles. Every inch of wall space is covered in shelves of glass bottles. It's crazy. The orchard is Kilcherman's. 
 

Another picture where I love the lighting. Our first evening, we went to a beach in Empire and watched the sunset. I was in photography heaven, let me tell you. I was giggling and I may have slightly jumped up and down :)
 

There was this piece of tree sticking out of the side of the beach and people have put rocks in the roots. It's a piece of beach art. 
 

One time, the golden came up out of the lake and rolled around in the sand. I was glad it wasnt my dog!
 

Most of the time, surprises in your pictures when you get home and look at them are not a good thing. This picture is an exception. I had no idea the bubbles were there and I really like what they add to the photo. 
 

Playing with shutter speed to smooth out the water. I was watching how the waves created mini-waterfalls on the rocks and wanted to capture it. You don't want to know how many pictures I took to get the second picture there. But I got what I wanted!
 

I also wanted to capture a wave that looked like a surfing wave. I got a couple of nice ones. They were challenges that I was happy to succeed at. 
 

 Lion King, anyone?

The sunset our first night was one of my favorite things I photographed on the whole trip. I played with the exposure, getting different - equally cool - types of pictures.
 

 Grapes

We climbed a dune. I don't know why I let them talk me into it. It was so hot. Mom and I just sat at the top of the section we climbed while Dad and the boys went a little higher. No thanks!

Mark and I went up the tower of a lighthouse we visited. (Not very high). A view looking out from the top.

 How Joe plays in the waves

That's him in the splash.

 

The previous two are from our sunset watching the first evening. I think sunset might become my favorite time of day to shoot.

I am thrilled beyond belief at how this picture turned out! We were walking out on a pier and he was hopping around. I managed to sneak past him on the far side and got two really nice pictures. He's sharp and the water is nice and smooth and it's gorgeous!

There you have it; a sampling of our trip. Other than the insanely hot weather, it was very nice.