The Wood Family

Michael photographed the Woods' wedding a few years before this session. Now they were back at Sleeping Bear, just north of Glen Arbor, with a new baby. Same terrain. Different family.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive

The session covered a lot of ground. It started at one of the quieter overlooks near the entrance, moved out to the #9 lookout where you get the full sweep of Lake Michigan, then down onto the dunes and along the boardwalk. Pierce Stocking has enough variety that you never have to stay in one spot, which helps when you're following a one-year-old.

The light at Pierce Stocking comes in at a low angle across the open dunes. There's no heavy tree cover at the overlooks, so you're working with open sky for most of the session. It reads more graphic than the softness you get in the woods at Old Mission. When the sky is doing something, you feel it in every frame.

A different kind of session

A baby changes how a session moves. You're not directing anyone. You're watching, staying out of the way, and being ready when something good happens. The Woods were easy about it. No one was trying to manufacture a moment.

What stood out was how different this felt from the wedding. On a wedding day there's weight to the whole thing. Every frame matters. Here, the pressure was off. They were crouching in the sand with their kid, doing what parents do. That's not easier to photograph exactly. It's just honest in a different way.

There's something particular about photographing a couple you first worked with on their wedding day. You remember how they were then. The nerves, the formality, the weight of everything. And then you see them a few years later chasing their kid across the same terrain, and the whole arc of it is right there. That's what keeps Michael coming back to this work. Not the single session but the longer version of someone's life.