West Michigan

I took a semi-spontaneous road trip to the west side of Michigan today in order to drop off a photo print on canvas to an art competition in Holland. My mother and had planned to go tomorrow, but the weather was so nice today that after breakfast we decided to leave early. On the way we stopped at Fredrick Meijer Gardens. This was both of our first visits to the gardens, and we both enjoyed it thoroughly. We visited the butterfly exhibit and children’s garden, and the sculpture gallery.
On this trip, I took along my old Pentax 35mm camera and shot with film. Sometimes it’s good to change things up and challenge yourself. In a way it’s good to shoot with film, you choose your shots more carefully, and think about exposure more critically because you have a limited number of chances to get it right. Also, there’s something nice about film in that, when you run out, you’re done shooting. It brings me back out of artist mode and into spectator faster. I think with digital it’s easy to get trapped in the view finder and never look up or around so see things with your eyes.

I wasn’t completely digital free, however. I had my iPhone, of course, and later in the day I had my Nikon point and shoot.
So since I shot film, I won’t have my prints back for a bit, but I thought I’d share my iPhoto’s as a preview.

The first few images posted here are from the Meijer Gardens, and the last from Mt Pisgah Boardwalk and then JP’s Coffee in Holland, MI. I’m so glad we left a day early. The day turned out wonderfully!