Autumn Sunset in the Woods — Brighton, Michigan, USA.

This image is definitely quite a happy accident. I looked up a park, about 30 minutes away from my home, to photograph fall colors in sunset. I typed in the name of the park to Google Maps, and a weird bug happened that I’d never seen before. The location Google showed me for that park was correct, but when I started the navigation directions, it changed the location completely! It took me somewhere else, a few miles away from where I had intended. Still, with light running out, I decided to hike through the woods, and came upon this spot.

Polar Vortex — Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

I don’t photograph a lot around my home, but sometimes unique weather conditions inspire me. This was the last morning of the so called “polar vortex” in early 2018, when Ann Arbor went from a relatively mild winter (rarely freezing or snowing) to dropping down to -20F, and no, that’s not even including wind chill! It gave me an idea, to photograph Barton Dam, hoping that ice had formed around the dam.

So I went out the last morning of the polar vortex to photograph sunrise. It was only 0F, which I was well-prepared for thanks to the Yukon trip a few months earlier. But I had no idea that it would look like this! Due to the mild winter overall, the water flow was still extremely high, forming incredibly beautiful mist which then froze as rime ice, covering all the nearby surfaces. And then the sun came up, and the mist glowed, and it made my favorite image I’ve taken in Michigan.

Bench in the Fall — Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Confluence of Seasons — Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Another photograph of unusual conditions in Ann Arbor, this was shot in mid-November 2019, the day after Ann Arbor had the most single-day snowfall in November ever. In this part of Southeastern Michigan, there isn’t much overlap of winter and fall. Unlike in other places, most of autumn color in the leaves has fallen off the trees before much snow starts coming in. So I drove around, hoping to find an image which captured this unusual circumstance. This image doesn’t really show much fall color, but I think that it’s still unusual for the standing corn stalks and soft snow on the ground. And it’s certainly unique within my photography, far more minimalist than my usual work.

The editing of this photo was partially inspired by the work of Benjamin Everett, one of my favorite photographers/digital artists.