Last month Al and I had the opportunity to take a much needed vacation. The company he works for is shut down during the 4th of July week and my clients seldom want work done that week. We selected the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for our destination for it’s beauty. It has a wealth of great places to visit and photograph. I was after some inspiration for paintings and textural interest for walls.

We loaded up the car with everything we needed for a week of camping and Upper Peninsula photography, and set out for ‘Up North’. We had plans for visiting waterfalls, Lake of the Clouds, the Porcupine Mountains and driving north into Copper Harbor on our agenda. We like to keep things flexible to do anything else that might interest us.

It was a wonderful and successful trip. We had a blast wading in Lake Superior, hiking alongside streams and waterfalls. We also visited the ruins of mines and towns and took loads of photos. Here are just a few of them:

Love the combination of brick and stone in this one.

Soon I hope to sit down and get some of what we saw onto canvas, preparing for an upcoming show. For now the ideas are swirling around in my head while I work on a few walls.