Family Fun ~ Fall Family Photographer ~ Northern Michigan

 

 

I love fall.

Growing up in Washington State, I found the months of September, October and November to be rather….soggy.

Like much of the rest of the year.

It’s the mountains, the rivers, the lush greens and outdoor brilliance whenever the sun shines that makes Washington so spectacular. But I will never forget the first time I met October in Michigan. It was October 13, 2000, and I flew into Chicago and drove into SW Michigan for a week with my best friend. The drive through the agricultural countryside on that first evening gave me memories, images that still come quickly to mind. Every house was decorated as if the month of October was THE celebration of the year! My first impression of Michigan was undoubtedly good, but sadly, two days later my best friend’s grandmother passed away, and we were soon on our way north to Kalkaska.

In the midst of the sadness of that week, two beautiful things blossomed: a relationship with the man who became my husband almost exactly a year later, and the soul-filling joy of anticipating the yearly return of splendid October in northern Michigan. In the years that followed our wedding and relocating to a place so far from my family and native home, the Octobers were like a shot in the arm of hope and profound gratefulness for the blessings to be received no matter where in the world you make your home.

These are some of my favorite images taken so far, these are the ones that are framed and up on my walls, or hanging in the living room, stretched on a gorgeous canvas so I can see them every day. They capture my favorite people, my corner of the world, and some of the favorite pieces of the vivid intensity of peak color in Kalkaska county. There is no real way to capture what this looks and feels like in real life. No words, no camera, could really take in the entirety of how the earth feels like it has its own light source, a glowing, wonderful, luminance everywhere you look. Even now, more than a decade later, I sometimes have  a difficult time driving during peak color week because my eyes are drawn to everything but the drab, gray road.

I am already looking forward to October 2015! I enjoy the spring greens after the long, hard winters, and we all know how fantastic summer afternoons on Torch Lake are on a sticky hot day, but October, you have my heart!