Lehman Road, Grass Lake MI

August 31, 2018

Motorycle Mornings

Early to bed, early to ride!

One morning each week, from dawn until just after sunrise, from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend, I headed out on my '76 BMW motorcycle, shooting the rural landscapes around my hometown of Jackson MI. All photos were shot roadside, using a fixed 35mm lens.

Click the "Older" tab at the bottom of the page to scroll though the pages for earlier dated photos.

Drifting into the chill of a dark and tranquil rural morning, unattached and uncertain, the clarity of solitude breeds intense focus. The hum and faint tappet ticking of the old boxer engine and hissing of wind become white noise. I breathe in everything - grass, gravel, corn, manure, a smoldering fire.

Free to follow any road I choose, I glide beside lakes and ponds, between pines and oaks and maples. I sluggishly ramble over gravel, and push through advection fog. Temperature and moisture are ever changing. Opossum and deer, coons and rabbits, scamper and leap from the tall roadside brush, fueling my disquietude. My eyes, hands, and feet work in harmony: scanning, shifting, braking, accelerating - and always anticipating.

As civil dawn shifts into sunrise, any lingering trepidation surrenders to pure exhilaration. A zen-like state settles on my shoulders, and both mind and body slip into morning, immersed in it, in total harmony.

My vessel. A 1976 BMW R90/6