Ray's Camping Photography page
Now I know that you either love photography, enjoy camping,
or are simply bored enough to surf the endless slush pile of the web. Either
that or you're a member of the family 
I went home from Germany on leave in the summer of 1981. I timed it so that I could go with my parents to the cottage that held so many childhood memories. This is a picture of my Grandpa Kelly as he does some early morning fishing.
My father wets a line and enjoys the sunset at the cottage.
This is a more recent picture. My grandparents no longer have their cottage in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This picture was taken in the summer of 2000 at my parents' cottage.
Here's one you can laugh at. It turns out that I am a better photographer than subject.
After I returned home from the cottage, My cousin and I took a canoe trip down the Manistee river, which is in the middle of Michigan and flows into Lake Michigan.
We each took a "timer" picture right after we loaded the canoe. I'm the one with the Army issue "Clark Kent" glasses who is attempting to look cool.
This is the canoe as seen from a sandy cliff. The front of the canoe is at the left side of the photo.
We really overdid it with luggage. We used our backpacks for the heavier stuff, and duffel bags with plastic garbage bags inside for our clothes and bedding. We took a large cooler for the food. Our camera bags were loaded inside plastic bags, and each camera body and lens was individually put into a plastic bag.
On later trips, we put our camera bags inside small coolers for waterproofing because we lost too many wildlife pictures because we couldn't retrieve our cameras fast enough.
We also later made special boxes that fit the canoe between the center strut and the back seats. I made one out of discarded fiberglass cutouts that we got from the dumpster at a business that makes pickup truck tops. Paul made his out of wood, and actually made a top that can be sealed down.
We never dumped, but we were glad to have our clothes and bedding in waterproof boxes.
Back during the depression, the United States government paid people to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). One of the projects of the CCC was to plant forests. They planted them in straight rows just like a farm crop.
I used to insist that we came elsewhere, since we were out to enjoy nature, not camp on a farm. Well... one day it was starting to get late, so we decided to camp where we could before it got dark. We still ended up setting up camp using lantern light.
We found that there are lots of advantages to camping in a CCC forest. The ground is softer and contains less rocks. The trees are well spaced for clothes lines and tents. The view is actually rather pleasant.
It was, of course, necessary to set up our campfire a good distance away from the forest.
Now for the camp tour:
The tents are set up close to each other so that we can reach from the tent that we use for sleeping into the "munitions" tent. Having a munitions tent allows us to keep our gear dry without being crowded by it.
For some reason, we didn't set up our tent fly. A tent fly is a piece of tent cloth that is stretched over the tent and acts as a roof. Water tends to soak through the thin nylon, and touching the side of the tent makes the problem worst. Putting a fly above the tent solves this problem by keeping most of the rain off.
Right to my right, attached to the tree, is a propane lantern. It isn't as bright as a gasoline lantern, but is less messy and more convenient.
We keep our food preparation stuff and other miscellaneous gear in our backpacks. That makes it easier to portage around the dams.
This picture was taken between 15 and 20 years ago. Mary, however, noted that the socks that I am wearing are still in my drawer. They are a bit more worn, though.
This is a picture of Paul as he is carrying his camera back to the canoe. The sand bank is very steep because this is the outside of a curve.
Rivers twist and turn and slowly move across the land because of erosion. The water tends to erode the outside bank of a curve, and deposit sediment on the inside bank. That is why the outside banks of rivers are generally very steep.
Paul would be mad if I posted this picture to the WWW without mentioning that he really IS wearing something. He is wearing a pair of tan colored shorts.
Soon after I left the Army, Paul and I went on a hiking trip in the Porcupine Mountains. All of you folks that are from states where they have real mountains would laugh at the Porkies, but they are the closest thing we have to mountains.
Tell you what... I won't laugh at your lakes if you don't laugh
at our mountain
Anyhow, we started at the Lake of the Clouds viewing area and hiked around, crossed the carp river (actually a small and frigid stream), and more or less followed it to Lake Superior (the biggest lake in the world).
About half way between Lake of the Clouds and Lake Superior, there is a waterfall and a cliff. I don't know what got into me, but I decided to climb that cliff, which is mostly made from shale. It wasn't a difficult climb, but it would have been very difficult to get me out of there if I had managed to fall and break something. Don't try this at home, kids.
Fast forward to the late '90s and early in the next millennia.
My father bought some land a little closer to home. It currently has a 12x70 frailer, but that will be turned into a storage shed and a lake house will be added so that Mom and Dad can move there when Dad retires.
My brothers bought one of those paddle boats that you see at amusement parks and fixed it up. It has been dubbed the "Family Yacht". You can see it in the center of the above picture.
The boat in the lower left corner of the picture is David's bass boat. Dave and Dan like to get up early an attempt to hook some fish. I like to sleep in and might get up by the time they get back.
In the spring of '00, we found some baby raccoons living under the small shed (in the background of this picture) at Dad's cottage. The mother had apparently decided that they were old enough to be out on their own. They were a little confused, though. In this picture, Mary is looking at one of them. She later left some scraps for him.
A Painted Turtle decided to explore near the cottage. Dad took him back down to the lake to reduce the probability of harassment by kids and dogs.