Extending 30 miles into Lake Michigan, the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan has the ideal weather and terrain for producing some of America’s best wines. The area is dotted with thriving wineries, apple orchards and cherry orchards, and we made sure we visited many of them.

The first very early morning I visited, I shot a glorious sunrise over a lake, the colors so vivid that the scene looked strangely Precambrian and utterly gorgeous.

I spent hour after hour later that morning capturing the fog-drenched trees in an apple orchard. As the hours passed by, the fog burned off, and I was able to move among the trees and shoot the swarm of activity at a beehive as it was bathed in shafts of sunlight.

Later that night I spent hours by a different lake, watching the reeds and observing the sunset in brilliant shades of pink, orange and purple.

From lush woods to fluttering flags, the Leelanau Peninsula weaves a spell on the visitor, and it should be plain to anyone why we chose this beautiful area as one of our featured locations.