April 2021 Photography
Dang! The world greened up very quickly in April! Now that we are finally getting some gorgeous colors in the landscapes of Michigan, I was itching to get out there and get some new locations added to my portfolio. Don’t get me wrong, I love photographing birds and wildlife, but so far this year, my 2021 portfolio at the beginning of April was a little lopsided as my wildlife entries this year dominated my attention so far.
That being said, here are the photography highlights for April!
A Slow Start to the Month
Admitted, I didn’t jump right into photography right away this month as I did in previous months. At first we were still in that ‘meh’ time of year where things are just brown and boring (to me, anyway). Our first weekend in April was also Easter weekend, and as much as I love photography and want to do it as much as possible, there are things in life that take priority over others, and the celebration of the Resurrection and spending that time with my family is one of them. But that doesn’t mean I did absolutely nothing photography related that weekend, I got to play around with the yummy treats that my mother put together for the family gathering, and we had a few extra backyard visitors that weekend that I spent some time with as well.
The next weekend was a photography weekend for me, but not in the usual sense. On April 10th, I attended my first artisan market of the year, selling some of my prints in various forms such as framed prints, bookmarks, cutouts in the shape of Michigan, and other things too. A new thing I tried this year is a customer raffle of some of my photos that I had made into 520-piece puzzles. I think it went very well and it’ll likely be a thing I continue to do going forward. I also had a second market I attended this month on the 30th as well.
Butterflies and Blossoms
Finally, about halfway through the month, I finally got out to capture more photographs. I took another stab at making it into the Butterflies are Blooming exhibit at Meijer Garden. Last time I arrived there at around 1-2pm roughly and after an hour in line to get a ticket, there was still a 2 hour wait to get to the butterflies, so I just did the outdoor photography that time. This time around, the wait was much more tolerable, so I got in. Being near the end of the 2-month long exhibit, the variety in the butterflies was not as much as it could have been, but hey, at least I made it this year.
Another reason for the visit this particular weekend, is that the cherry blossoms were at their peak in the Japanese Garden. After the butterflies I went out for another walk through the park. The blossoms were just perfect, and seeing as how a few petals were starting to dance their way to the grass below, I got there just in time this year. With perfect blue skies with nice fluffy white clouds, I couldn’t have asked for a better day. I took a walk through the rest of the Japanese Garden and along the swampy boardwalks of the park too for fun.
A Good Day Hike
After the perfect weekend I had to go to the Japanese Garden, we had a classic Michigan weather week, where we swung from nice 60˚ weather right back to cold windy days with snow flurries. The following weekend I was concerned it’d be nothing but grey skies for my photo hike, but Sunday came in strong and I had another perfect day for a hike, even if it was still in the 40’s temperature-wise.
I decided to revisit a location I shot in the past, the South Swan Creek Loop Trail. I’ve taken photos here before, but I’ve never hiked the entirety of the 5.7 mile loop. This time around, I committed to doing the entire hike, not only to see new sights in the area, but also (shamefully) my eating habits were thrown out the window lately, so I could stand to work some of that off. End of the hike, after going in and out of different areas to get various shots, I ended up turning that 5.7 mile hike into a 6.5 mile hike.
Bible Verse Images of the Month
