I got my start in photography as a young teacher advising the yearbook class. While a professional took the facial snaps, the students and I took and developed all the candid, sport, and club pictures ourselves. Back then, they were all black and white. Now, black and white photography is mostly digital. It was fun “developing” these photos in black and white after a trip to the boonies, but color photography is my mainstay.
When I think of same digit Michigan highways, I obviously think of iconic M-22. But there’s another rural highway with same digit numbers, M-66. It runs from Charlevoix to the Indiana state line. Fields of corn and soybean and many farms, some in dilapidated condition, dot its roadsides. I wonder if the M-66 signs get stolen too.
I’ve been seeing more deer lately. I loved these four fawns lazing on a freshly mowed hay field. Their spots are beginning to fade. Some deer are already growing their dark winter coats.
I hadn’t seen a hawk close enough to photograph all summer, so when I saw this beauty along US-31 north I pulled off the highway into a ditch to take pictures. It posed, flew so I could get its tail, then returned to the wire. I was surprised when a good neighbor pulled up next to my Subaru to ask if I was okay. Thank you, but doesn’t everyone take pictures from a ditch?
Remember these twin sandhill crane colts I photographed in June when they were only a month old? After those first few sightings, I hadn’t seen them again until last week when I spotted them in a field striding and eating. I didn’t stay long but I was happy to see they had grown and survived the challenges that nature and predators can bring.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve been retired from my first career as a high school Latin and English teacher for over thirty years. I still get that back-to-school feeling this time of year. It sent me out to take pictures of old schoolhouses all over our area. Most have been repurposed, but some stand abandoned. Then I saw the neglected school bus and added it too.
