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ART OF THE LANDSCAPE
PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES & ESSAYS
Frederick Werner, Farm, Leelanau County
On a spring day in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855. As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, black smithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Frederick Werner, Farm, Leelanau County
On a spring day in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855. As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, black smithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Frederick Werner, Farm, Leelanau County
On a spring day in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855. As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, black smithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Frederick Werner, Farm, Leelanau County
On a spring day in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855. As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, black smithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Frederick Werner, Farm, Leelanau County
On a spring day in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855. As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, black smithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Pyramid Point, a 350′ bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200′ above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
GALLERIES
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