We live on one acre in southwest Michigan, within an easy drive to Lake Michigan. We garden organically using a no-till approach. We just finished an 8’x12′ greenhouse, which will extend the warm seasons. As long as we keep growing, we should never run out of plant subjects to photograph!

 

Bob retired from the his job with the State of Michigan 20 years ago. For several years we ran a hand bookbindery, and made marbled paper for 10 years. Some of this marbled paper has worked its way into our photography from time to time.

 

Amid all the chosen activities and activities that selected us, there was always photography – and before that seeing. Seeing became a search for beauty and its underlying truth. A camera kindly documents what is already there and constant.

 

Thoreau: “Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exceptions we see and hear.”

 

The picture above, captured at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, a beutiful 600 acre environmental education center, near us, and near and dear to our hearts, would almost certainly be one that Thoreau would find to have a “certain beauty”.