Northport Photo Exhibit Photographers 2026
Allison Acosta
Allison is a passionate storyteller with a deep love for nature, often found in the woods or by the water with a camera in hand.
She enjoys photographing landscapes, wildlife, outdoor recreation—but her favorite moments are the small ones that often go unnoticed. A dew-covered mushroom glistening in the autumn sun. Spring’s first violets peeking out from last year’s leaf litter. A snail quietly making its way across the forest floor. Those are the moments that inspire her most.
Allison also has more than 13 years of experience as a photojournalist, capturing everything from concerts, events and breaking news, to portraiture, food photography and business profiles. When she’s not behind a camera, she loves rock hunting, hiking, foraging, and baking.
You can follow Allison’s adventures on Instagram or Facebook: @allisonjacostaphotography.
Paul Anderson
My love of photography started over 70 years ago when my Dad gave me his old Argus C3 camera. Finding patterns in nature and capturing moments in life that stop you in your tracks….that’s what I aim for. I love shooting people, especially in my travels around the world. Photos that draw you in, make you smile, and make you wonder about the world around us. Photos open us to dream, imagine, and transform.
Diane Belfour
Leelanau 5th Generation Photography, Works of Light… the Imagery of diane lather belfour Born in a darkroom on the shores of Lake Michigan, diane has been a photographer for most of her life; it seems genetic, influenced by generations of photographers in her family living in Leelanau County. She cherishes her wealth of spectacular images from their decades in the county and hope to share those soon! A passion for capturing the emotion of weddings and portraits kept her busy and away for many years, but her heart is in fine art photography and her family home… Leelanau County. Loving traditional photography, diane will never abandon that art form. She seeks to capture compelling images and sometimes sends them on a grand adventure of their own, creating dramatic or whimsical art pieces with her computer. This is just a small glimpse into diane’s photographic journey! Enjoy!
Image: Memories of the Bay
leelanau5thgenphoto@gmail.com
Amber Bingham
Amber settled in Leelanau County in 2005 and enjoys being creative in all aspects of her life. As with most things you give time and attention to, photography is one interest that she continues to develop and over the last several years it has grown into a rewarding hobby.
Finding her most joy when immersed in nature, her photos focus on that inspiration attempting to capture the beauty of the present moment.
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it”.. Confucius. You can follow her on Instagram, under the handle "Ambovison".
Tracey Bos
Tracey is a self-taught film and alternative processes photographer who lives in mid Michigan.
She shoots with a variety of cameras ranging from lo-fi to more complex models.
Curiosity drives her exploration into manipulating the interaction of film with chemistry to get unique results.
Scott Cain
Scott Cain is a multi-hyphenate based in Northport, temporarily living in Richmond MI. With backgrounds in industrial design, woodworking, and garden lighting, he works to bring a poetic sensibility to all of his endeavors.
His images are an effort to capture quiet instances in color, and light. With photography Scott invites the willing to pause, breathe, and rediscover the arcadian world that lives around us.
This is Cain’s sixth participation in this Northport Photo Exhibition.
Donald Daniels
My name is Donald Daniels and I am a native Michigander who is an amateur photographer for more than 46 years. I first became interested in photography more than 67 years ago when my uncle (Ben) gave me 8 very old film cameras (dating back to the 1930s and 40s). He also threw in some ancient dark room equipment to process black and white film and a projector to expose photo paper with the negatives I produced. Those cameras ranged from a folding Kodak to a large Graflex press camera (with flash and plates to slide into the back of the camera. I discovered my bedroom closet made a great darkroom (if you stuff a blanket at the bottom of the door and put black electrical tape on the skeleton key hole) and made my mother cringe at the thought of me in a closet with chemicals. After 3 years of learning those cameras and smelling up my room with photographic chemicals’ I set photography aside to pursue more interesting things (like baseball and girls).
It was not until the Vietnam War that I was reintroduced to photography in 1968. After being wounded, and then undergoing surgery, I was evacuated to Japan for recovery and therapies. When I was released from the hospital I was re-assigned to clerical duties and actually had time on my hands and wanted to record sites I was seeing in Japan. So, I bought my first new film reflex camera a Yashika 35mm. I began taking photos and was able to develop them for free on base at the local USO facility. Some of the photos got shared and one day the full Bird Cornel contact me and requested I take pictures of Miss America (there was no Ms. at that time) touring the base. This photo assignment got my interest in cameras and picture taking. Prior to leaving Japan I sold my Yashika and bought a Nikon SLR (film) with two lenses (35mm and 50mm).
Over the ensuing years I became better at taking pictures (people started to want copies), I learned that there were many areas of photography I had never explored (e.g. Portraits, Abstract, Landscape, Nature, Astro, Still Life, Street, Industrial and more) that needed to be explored. So, I began that exploration and learned a lot about what cameras and the right lenses could do to help a photographer. Which lead me to loving Nature photography. Which lead me to taking more photographs in Northern Michigan at my in-law’s place in and around Kalkaska. Which led my wife and I to buy land in Buckley and build a summer home (which is now our home for a while). Which allowed me to spend days and weeks and years taking photographs of Nature (wild life, rivers, hills, lakes etc.). Which lead me to joining the Traverse Area Camera Club. Which has now led me to North Port and submitting some photographs I hope you will all enjoy.
There is more to my story concerning my love of photography (many parts both crazy and boring to others).
Lisa Flaska Erickson
Lisa’s eye responds to the grace and allure of Northern Michigan. Her unique view has been capturing the soul of the moment and captivating her audience. The Traverse City native is one of the most sought after landscape photographers in the area and has been published in a number of national publications. Through her lens, she defines the soul of the Great Lakes and their environs.
To see more of her work go to LFEpictures.com
Marjorie Farrell
Marjorie Farrell remembers posing for Polaroid, Brownie and Box cameras as a child. The results always seemed magical to her. She began taking photographs in 1984 in a class at Duchess Community College in
Poughkeepsie, NY. This led to an interest in black and white photos which have garnered many awards. She has been in shows in New York and Michigan. Over the decades she has embraced innovations and
advancements in photography including digital photography, cameras in phones, computer manipulations, and printing on computers.
She enjoys photographing landscapes, light and shadow, flowers, and abstracts of architecture. She recently spent several weeks in the American Southwest which resulted in the series of photographs in this show.
Walt Farrell
Walt has been a photographer for about 40 years now, and is often attracted to scenes that exhibit strong interplay between light & shadow, reflections, surface patterns, and intense color. He also looks for interesting architectural details, and works with extreme closeup shots and sometimes strongly-altered color (though not in this show).
Jo Gringas
When I was in my 20s, I dabbled a little with photography, buying myself an Olympus OM-1. I learned how to use a hand-held light meter, and I learned how challenging it was for a broke student to shoot a roll of 36 exposures and possibly only end up with one decent shot. I put photography aside and went on to finish my education and pursue my career, neither of which had anything at all to do with using a camera.
Years later, as I approached retirement, I realized I needed to find something to do that would challenge me and hold my interest. I started thinking about photography again, and since the digital age had blossomed, I wasn’t worried about wasted rolls of film. That gave me the confidence to try again.
I started with a Nikon D7100 and an inexpensive walking-around lens that had a little reach to it. I read a lot. I watched online tutorials. I admired the photography of others that I found on FB and other places. Slowly, I learned how to shoot in manual, and eventually moved to shooting in RAW, which of course, led to learning how to use Lightroom for post processing.
I still have so very much to learn, but I’ve met many photographers who are generous with their time and knowledge, and in the TACC, I found a comfortable place to get feedback on my work. I’m grateful I found my way back to this endeavor; it’s been very enriching for me.
Mike Haynes
Mike is a Northport resident and a self-taught photographer. He is a contributing photographer for Pixabay, Pexels, and iStock by Getty Images. Mike also dabbles in writing, painting, and rock art.
Mike uses photography to tell stories and to help others see the world in different ways. Mike’s goal is to demonstrate that even the simplest objects in front of a lens can stimulate curiosity and evoke emotion.
The works on display represent Mike’s attempt to use balance, rhythm and overall composition in order to trigger a response from viewers.
Allen Heuer
My hometown is Manistee, located on Lake Michigan some sixty miles south of Traverse City. I grew up there loving the Lake Michigan beaches and surrounding natural areas.
My photography interests started during my high school years with black & white film and an inexpensive medium format camera with limited capabilities. These limitations encouraged me to apply a bit of creativity to achieve the images I visualized.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s I covered weddings, local business product photography, advertising images, custom framing and most dear to me, images of Northwest Michigan during all seasons of the year. These images have found exposure in art fairs, photo contests, calendars, and public exhibit, bringing honorable mention to first place winners.
In 1984 my tool design career brought my family and I to Traverse City where I continue to discover and capture the natural beauty of this area for many to enjoy.
Philosophy:
Through my images, I hope to share some of the character of this area with others and encourage them to discover, appreciate and protect the natural beauty around us.
Marilyn Hoogstraten
Photography began as a hobby for me, photographing my young daughters, their friends, their activities, and the landscape around me. I bought used darkroom equipment and spent hours printing my parents' old negatives. When my daughter’s best friend said, “But you are going to photograph my wedding, aren’t you?” I bought a digital camera and took a workshop. I loved wedding photography, and when I had an opportunity to retire from my “real” job, I started an “encore career” in photography. I found over the years, even in wedding photography, that it was capturing the details, the essence of a place, or the emotion of a person, that I enjoyed most. Now I shoot for myself, celebrating the shape, the form, the design of the space around me, and collecting through photography things that delight me.
Image: Heaven Dancing
Ted Lacey
I’m a freelance photographer from Chicago. I was a newspaper reporter and editor there for 10 years, and picked up photo journalism skills along the way.
I eventually started my own independent photography business, specializing in editorial, public relations and photo illustration.
I was in a few photo exhibits in Chicago, and many photos have been published.
More recently, dozens of my photos hung in exhibitions in the Traverse City area.
After vacationing here every summer for more than 30 years, my wife and I finally bought a second home here, on Lake Arbutus, in 2020. We moved here from Chicago full time in 2023.
After running my business for 50 years, I “retired,” and have more time for my fine art photography.
I also make welded steel sculptures. I live to create my art.
Ted Lacey Fine Art Photography: tedlacey.myportfolio.com
Email: tedlacey@mac.com
Bill Lindemann
Bill Lindemann explores perception as both subject and method. His work often emerges from quiet encounters with overlooked places; abandoned structures, transitional spaces, and edges where
human presence recedes into the natural world. Through the use of reflection, transparency, and
layered planes, he compresses interior and exterior into a single visual field, dissolving fixed boundaries
of space and time.
Structure and disorder exist in constant dialogue as architectural lines and subtle geometries anchor compositions that might otherwise drift into organic complexity. Rather than seeking resolution,
the work sustains ambiguity, inviting prolonged looking and a heightened awareness of how we
construct what we see.
At its core, Lindemann's practice is less about documentation than about attention; an attempt to hold fleeting alignments of light, surface, and memory. The resulting images carry a quiet psychological weight, where absence feels present and the ordinary becomes a site of reflection.
Photo Coming Soon!
Riley Palmer
Riley Palmer was born and raised in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. She spent her summers growing up in Northport and worked throughout the peninsula. In 2017, she graduated from the University of Arizona with a BFA in Photography. In August 2022, she completed her Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Parsons School of Design in New York City. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Esther Send
I am married to a cherry farmer with 3 married kids and 5 grand kids. I have had a camera since I was 11 years old, at a time when you usually didn't give a kid a camera. While I mostly tend to focus on nature shots, I'm inclined to take photos of many other things that catch my eye.
My other interests include machine embroidery and sewing. There are times when I can combine photography with one or both of the other interests.
As a life long resident of Leelanau County, I find plenty of picturesque settings that demand being photographed.
Don Spezia
Influenced by the elements of nature...
I have been interested in photography, since acquiring my first 35mm camera. Photographs usually include nature, wildlife, architecture, moments in time, motion, and landscapes. My favorite photographs are outdoors, influenced by the elements of nature. A photograph of something unplanned will will find me, instead of me finding a photograph of something I was hoping to capture.
I shoot 35mm digital with a Canon 90D, a number of lenses; and an occasional iPhone 8 photograph. I had been a member of the West Shore Camera Club (Muskegon, MI), from 2003 to 2010. I served on the Board as Secretary/Newsletter Editor most of those years.
I have had photographs accepted for showing at various juried Art Exhibits, including a Purchase award at the Muskegon Museum of Art, and various Honorable Mentions at a number of exhibits. Among the latest are an Honorable Mention for “Abstract Matters” category at 311 Gallery in Raleigh, NC, and an Honorable Mention for the 2023 Plein Air Photo Shoot for the Northport Arts Association (NAA), and an Honorable Mention at the 2024 NAA Photo Contest. I have had a photograph accepted for publication in the Walloon Writers Review 9th Edition, slated for publication in 2025.
I have worked as an Architect as my career and retired in 2017. Other activities include playing and writing original guitar instrumentals. My photography has been used in the CD case design in all of my 9 different music CD's. More information can be found on my website:
Sheri Strpko
I have always had a passion for photography starting at a young age. helping my father develop pictures in his dark room. I am mostly self taught and started my photography journey by photographing my kids during their sporting events. Once they moved on from sports, I found a fondness for wildlife, astro and landscape photography. I enjoy the challenge wildlife and landscapes photography present. I try to capture scenes where even if someone has never been there, they feel as if they have.
Currently I am retired from the construction industry and enjoy travelling with my husband and photographing landscapes, bears and owls. my husbadn and I live in Big Rapids with our Golden Retriever, Gunner, and one needy cat.
“Nature teaches us patience”
Harris Suzuki
After spending most of my working life in the crowded , very loud, floor trading pits in Chicago and London, UK, I've now retired to the luxurious light of Northern Michigan and I'm exploring it with my camera.
I was a photography major as an undergraduate but after spending what seemed like nearly everyday in a darkroom for four years, I swore I would never step into a darkroom again.
Then they invented digital photography.
https://portfolio-egzqzus.format.com/
(open but under construction)
Tim Wade
I have been working with photography for over 40 years, beginning in the mid/late seventies. In the early years, I worked primarily with black and white and branched into color later on. At the time I exhibited in various art shows and galleries around Michigan, most frequently in Ann Arbor
Having retired, I have the luxury of spending more time with photography. I work in both color and black and white; my artistic side prefers black and white. I have converted to completely digital work and do my own printing. All the work you see here is archivally produced. Since retiring in 2015 I have had photos in galleries around northern Michigan at various times (Traverse City, Northport, Petoskey, Frankfort and Gaylord.
Sheen Watkins
Sheen is a landscape, bird, nature, and adventure photographer who thrives on capturing the beauty of the outdoors in all its forms. As a Part 107 FAA certified drone pilot, she also brings perspectives from above, showcasing nature from angles most people never get to see.
She feels most at home in the outdoors, on the road, anywhere surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature. Based in Michigan, Sheen finds endless inspiration in the changing seasons—each one bringing new photo opportunities and creative challenges.
Whether it’s a quiet forest path, birds in flight, or a magnificent night sky view, Sheen’s photography reflects her deep love for the natural world and the adventures that come with exploring it.
Explore her work at www.sheenwatkins.art.
Holly Wiltse
Holly Wiltse is an emerging photographer who lives in Northern Michigan. She is a member of the Traverse Area Camera Club where she has learned and developed as an artist. Her work has been displayed at Crooked Tree Art Center, the Traverse Area District Library, and the Mackinac Arts Council. The 2026 Dart For Art fundraising event in Bay Harbor will have one of her pieces as well.
When capturing images, Holly is inspired by the beauty of nature and the creativity of architecture. Photography brings a lot of joy to her life, especially when she is able to share her work with others.
Rachel Winslow
Rachel Winslow is an innkeeper, light artist, and self taught experimental photographer living in Leland, MI. Her work focuses on the use of homemade, vintage, and toy cameras to make photographs that are abstract and dreamlike. She has taught countless film photography workshops through the years and her musician portraiture has been featured on national platforms such as Pitchfork, NPR, and more. She's been shooting film for 16 years and is constantly exploring new & unconventional ways to photograph using experimental methods.