Autumn Upper Peninsula

The "Big Mac", or as it's properly known, the Mackinac Bridge. This massive span links Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas, and is a gateway to true north. I made this image from the Upper Peninsula side, looking south across the Straits of Mackinac towards Mackinaw City on the south side of the bridge.

Debbie DiCarlo and I just returned from an epic scouting trip to the UP, to determine sites for a photo workshop that we'll be leading in October 2019. We'll have the details of that sorted soon, but for now HERE IS THE LINK to our workshops for 2019. They'll all be good, and we'd love to have you along on any of them. We've got dates and itineraries for most, and the Upper Peninsula trip details will appear there soon.

Following is a visual feast of fall in the Upper Peninsula from our recent reconnaissance trip.

The fall color in the UP is breathtaking. Early to mid-October is peak, and nearly everywhere one goes there are numerous photo ops. "Tree Tunnels" such as this abound. This one was deep in the Hiawatha National Forest south of Munising.

A red maple sapling glows as if it's been plugged in. Ashy-white reindeer lichen punctuate the foreground and a foggy red pine forest provides the backdrop.

Brightly bicolored red maple leaves accent an old white birch log on a frosty morning, nestled in a bed of haircap moss and reindeer lichens.

An amazing - as in stop the car! - white birch forest in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We spent quite a while here, before dragging ourselves away. There were gale warnings on this day, and even a half-mile inland from Lake Superior the winds were powerful. That ended up working to my advantage as the stout breeze shook the leaves to create a blurred painterly look to the photograph.

Coffee-colored water rushes over a set of falls at Tahquamenon Falls. There are several tiers of falls here, and numerous compositional opportunities. This is the largest set of falls in Michigan, and when at peak spring flow, Tahquamenon facilitates the third largest volume of water of any falls east of the Mississippi River.

Bridalveil Falls, cascading 140 feet down a colorful cliff in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This is Michigan's tallest falls, and it can be seen from a LONG ways away. The regular boat tours here probably offer the best and closest perspective of Bridalveil. There is no way to get near the falls on the ground, except at the summit where the view is not great and the situation is hazardous. I made this image from about one-half mile away, using a 500mm telephoto with 1.4x extender for a 700mm reach.

Memorial Falls, within the city limits of Munising and one of many waterfalls in the area. This one is reminiscent of the sandstone recess cave waterfalls in the Hocking Hills of southeastern Ohio.

The shores of Lake Superior are renowned for colorful cobble beaches, and this is a prime example. This shoreline is along Au Train Bay, about 15 minutes west of Munising. Various rocks - basalt, rhyolite, gneiss, granite and others - provide for stunning photo ops.

One could spend half the day with these rocks and a camera. I spent some time standing in the wave zone with my camera pointed down at the cobble, trying to time shots with incoming waves.

Upon arrival to this magical Au Train Bay beach, I noticed a trio of Lapland longspurs foraging in the wrack line. So I rushed back to the Jeep, grabbed a telephoto lens, and rushed back down the beach to get in front of the birds. Tame as they tend to be, the longspurs ignored me and advanced right by my position as I crouched in the sand.

The sunsets and sunrises over Lake Superior can be incredible and we were lucky in that we caught several showy ones. Here, the setting sun lights the horizon on fire, as seem from Miners Beach in Picture Rocks National Lakeshore.

This was a sunrise of epic scope, viewed from one of the most remarkable lookouts along Lake Superior, Sugarloaf Mountain just west of Marquette. Making it even better is an unusual solar flare known as a "Sun Pillar" The sun was still below the horizon when I made this photo, but is telegraphing a columnar yellow reflection into the sky.

We'll be going to all of the above locales, and numerous others, on next fall's photo tour. Again, for details CLICK HERE.