» Location

Photo Challenge :: One Hour, One Lens, One Location

Darrin Wassom — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:17:25 +0000

These photos are the results of a “challenge” I issued myself on Saturday morning. I was hanging out in Alden, Michigan while waiting for Rhonda to finish up her morning in Bellaire. I gave myself one hour to walk around Alden using only my 105mm macro lens. If you have been to Alden then you know it isn’t a large town so I was happy with the diversity of photos I was able to get within the allotted time. Photos of Torch Lake seemed too obvious so I focused my efforts around the train depot and the downtown stroll. Hope you like!

Cottage Update for July 2010

Darrin Wassom — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:53:27 +0000

We are in the home stretch on finishing the construction project in Traverse City. Chris and his crew are knee deep in all the detail work so I thought I’d focus on those very details for this blog post. I spent most of my time photographing the exterior details since I forgot to bring any lighting equipment with me. We expect to be done and moved in the next two weeks!!

Here is the front entrance of the house. The sidewalk has been poured and the steel wires for the railing are in the process of being connected. The entry lights are temporary as the actual lights are still on backorder.

Here is the view from the lake. All the siding is done and the steel wires for the deck railing are all in place now. This photo also serves of a painful reminder that we have a lot of yardwork to do in the near future.

Don and Chris finishing up the steel wire connections. They are using a special crimping tool that to buy outright is $4000. Needless to say, this one was rented for a week!

Here is a detail photo of how the steel wires are connected to the house.

This is a detail photo of how the steel wires are crimped and finalized. I love the modern and industrial look!

The steel railing as it looks from the entrance to the covered porch.

I absolutely love how the stairs from the lake turned out. The wood and steel has an organic yet industrial look. Using the telephone poles was a stroke of pure genius.

This is the exterior light hanging over the covered porch. The entry lights are very similar in design.

We added low voltage lights along the walkway to help illuminate things. I like that they are low voltage and throw just enough light to see but not enough to pollute the night sky.

Moving inside now, here is a detail photo of the door hardware. The lock set and hardware is all exposed and gives a cool vintage look. It mixes well with the industrial elements of the house.

Okay, this is a pure geek photo but I love how the showerhead looks against the slate tile.

Mud, Sweat and Beers Fat Tire Fest 2010

Darrin Wassom — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:50:32 +0000

The weather was absolutely perfect on Saturday for the first annual Mud, Sweat and Beers Fat Tire Festival. The event was held at Mt. Holiday in Traverse City and featured multiple races to include the a ten mile course called, ‘Pale Ale, a twenty mile ball buster, ‘Stout’ and for the kids, a mile long trail called, ‘Root Beer’. I raced in the Pale Ale category. Well, race is probably not the best word to describe my effort. I survived the race and managed not to come in last place. This race features a lot of climbing and for anyone that knows me, hills are not my friend. : )

My friends Jerry, Jeff and Tiffany rode in the ‘Stout’ race and all had very respectable times. In fact, Tiffany was 10 seconds away from placing third in her category!! The ‘Stout’ course “featured” 1300 feet of vertical climbing over 20 miles. Ouch!! The organizers are already talking about adding more elevation to the course for next year.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and we are all definitely looking forward to making this race an annual event. As for the photos, well, we didn’t get too many. Rhonda snapped a few before the race but once I finished, I was too wiped out to walk back to the truck to get the camera. Next year!!

Jeff, Tiffany and Darrin

Darrin (that's me!) near the finish line

Jerry mugging for the camera at the starting line

Darrin blasting off from the starting line

Course Map and Elevation Profile for the Pale Ale Course

Course Map and Elevation Profile for the Stout Course

Out and About in Northern Michigan :: Mud, Sweat and Beers

Darrin Wassom — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:03:54 +0000

Come out and catch us this Saturday at the first annual, ‘Mud, Sweat and Beers‘ mountain bike race in Traverse City. The event is being held to raise funds for Mt. Holiday Ski and Recreation Area. The cool thing about Mt. Holiday is that it is a not-for-profit organization focused on providing affordable winter and summer recreational opportunities for our youth. Most notably, under-privileged youth. As a 501(c)3, Mt. Holiday provides free lessons, rentals, and more to school-age kids who utilize their school’s free lunch program. It’s a safe, fun place for kids who might not otherwise have anywhere to go during the winter.

If mountain bikes aren’t your thing, there is also going to be a hog roast and a beer tent. Look for our photos on Monday and we hope to see you there!

Out and About in Northern Michigan :: Kim Kaufman – Behind the Lens

Darrin Wassom — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:00:30 +0000

As part of our move to Traverse City, we are going to feature an area or event in northern Michigan on the blog every other Monday. We love to get “out and about” so you will definitely find us at any of the areas/events posted here. Our first post is photography-related and can be found right here in Traverse City at the Dennos Museum! This exhibit runs through June 13th but we highly recommend visiting as soon as possible. Once the sun comes out the the warm weather hits the air, you will want to be outside as much as possible! : ) We found out about this event at the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau. A great resource for planning your trip “up north”.

Kim Kauffman – Beyond the Lens – April 10 through June 13, 2010

Location: Dennos Museum Center

Website: www.dennosmuseum.org

Kim Kauffman – Beyond the Lens: Cameraless Photo-Collage – Cameraless images are as old as photography itself, begun in the mid-1800s with Henry Fox Talbot’s photogenic drawings and Anna Atkin’s studies of mosses and algae. The form has continued outside the mainstream of photography to the present day. Kim Kauffman embraces this tradition using modern tools and techniques. For the past eleven years Kauffman has combined cameraless recording of her subjects and photo-collage. With this process a new surreal visual world based upon an exploration of light, color, texture and scale emerges in these superbly sharp and sensuously soft images.

This exhibition combines three ongoing bodies of work: Florilegium, Collaborations and Illumitones. Their common thread is Kauffman’s singular vision that explores abstraction of the subject. Florilegium combines flowers, leaves, seedpods collected from gardens. Many are past their prime — the stages of growth and decay depicted in these images re-create life’s rhythms and dramas. Collaborations builds from Florilegium combining natural and synthetic elements to examine the forms that nature repeats across all things and how we humans mimic these forms in our designs. Illumitones takes abstraction further as the subject becomes a vehicle for organic and geometric studies of light and shadow, line and form — distilling the intrinsic elements of the human endeavor of making art.