December 2021/January 2022 Photography
Happy New Year Everybody!
After the craziness of the holiday season, I was absolutely ready to get back out there and do some more photography, especially with the change of seasons providing me with some winter scenery to work with.
Through the holiday season my social media feeds was bombarded with a heavier surge of advertising (surprise, surprise), most of which I blocked one by one (not sure why Facebook thought I needed so many Mixtile ad’s from 20 different facebook pages). However, in the midst of the commercialism, one ad did catch my eye, and it was a free thing too so that caught my attention and I decided to actually look into it. In 2022, I decided to the take the 52 Hike Challenge. Basically, I’m committing to go on a hike at least once a week; just for the sake of getting outside, and obviously I wouldn’t do those hikes without my camera of course. Part of the challenge is to share the hikes on social media as well, so I thought that’d be a way for me to get more involved with my photo page on Facebook (as an introvert, social media is a bit of a weak spot for me as a photographer).
With a challenge to myself set up for 2022, here are the photography highlights for December/January.
A Holiday Heavy December
I’ll admit it, December wasn’t a photography month for me. With the combination of family events and busy holiday schedules, along with the fact that it barely snowed in December (or quickly melted before I had a chance to get out there); I just wasn’t motivated to work on photography this month.
As things settled down after Christmas, I did do a small bit of backyard photography on a frosty morning. So while it wasn’t a typical month for me, I didn’t leave the camera in the bag all month.
Remodeling for 2022
I don’t share it too often, but in case if you were wondering, I do have a room dedicated to working on my photography at home. It isn’t a large room, so it’s super easy for the room to get cluttered and cramped as I get new gear or make more inventory. This month, I took the time to reorganize and purge some of the junk that I was hanging on to. Since I took the time to clean up the workspace, I thought I’d show it off a little bit, give you peek at my work space.
#Hike1 at the Outdoor Discovery Center
January 2: Thus begins the 52 Hike Challenge. I was still feeling tired from all the holiday activities, so I decided to stick close to home rather than drive for an hour or two to find a new place to explore (that will come later J).
I decided to head to the Outdoor Discover Center near where I live to walk the trails. Despite living so close to this place, I’ve never actually taken the time to walk the trails. The sights were very pretty with the fresh fallen snow from the night before.
I also made sure to pay a visit to the Dewitt Birds of Prey center along the trails. Last year I visited I went a little crazy with how many images of the birds I kept and put into my portfolio. This time around, I set a rule for myself to narrow my shots down to the best shot of each bird rather than multiples of each. The residents of the center changed from my last visit as well. While the Snow Owl wasn’t there anymore like I was hoping, I did get some shots of an American Kestrel and a Cooper’s Hawk that I didn’t have before, plus some other great shots of the old favorites as well.
#Hike2 to the Fallasburg Covered Bridge
For the next hike, I got a little farther away from home for some shooting on the challenge. I wanted to get this covered bridge added to my portfolio and mosaic project. We could of done this one of two ways, drive right up to the bridge, or go around to the other side and hike through the county park trails to the destination. We opted for the hike, capturing some winter landscapes in the woods and along the Flat River as we made our approach to the bridge.
#Hike3 in South Haven and a visit to the Beach
The following week, my plans got disrupted a little bit. I wanted to pay a visit to Lake Macatawa and Ottawa beach since last year I had a fun time photographing the Mergansers and Long Tailed Ducks that were floating in the frigid waters. Unfortunately when I got there, the area where the ducks were floating and the angle of the sunlight did not make for a successful photo shoot. My plan was to shoot the ducks and hike/walk along the icy & uneven paths along the channel for the hiking challenge, but the wind was biting and I could barely stand it out there. I did take a couple simple shots along the pier while trying to determine how or if I could get good shots of the ducks, but in the end, that Saturday didn’t yield a successful excursion for me.
So in the interesting of still getting my weekly hike in, the next day after lunch I looked up different trails in the AllTrails apps, and picked out a trail I haven’t been to before to get in Hike #3. This brought me to the Black River Preserve outside of South Haven. This trail provided me with some more forest landscapes along with some riverscapes featuring some partial ice melt that made for some interesting images.
A Quick Outing to Saugatuck and #hike4 at the Upper Macatawa Natural Area
The next weekend we got a good snowfall on Saturday. That didn’t stop me from getting out that day, but I didn’t go too far due to the wind and snow fall that day. I took a drive out to Saugatuck to check a few more landmarks off my to-do list for the mosaic project I’m working.
Still wanting to stay on track for the hiking challenge, I planned on checking out a new trail near home the following day. However, when I got there the gate to the parking lot by the trail was closed. So I made a quick detour to the Upper Macatawa Natural Area, which I revisit from time to time at various times in the year. I’ve covered this trail during Winter in the past, so I decided rather than shoot the same landscapes again, I focused only on whatever wildlife I encountered on that day.
Future Plans
I also got some other exciting news this month. My church offers opportunities for various mission trips in and out of country throughout the year, and one of those trips was to the same area that I went to in 2013 when I went on a previous mission trip to Alaska! I filled out the trip application, and got in on the trip! While the main purpose of the trip is mission work obviously, I will have the opportunity to do some photography in Alaska! That is something I’ve been wanting to do again since I was last there in 2013. It’ll be fun to go again, and eventually compare these photos to the old ones from the previous trip to see how my photography has evolved over the past 9 years. This trip will take place at the end of May this year.
Bible Verse Photos of the Month
