lynn

Dally in the Alley 2026

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 21:04:18 GMT

It's been years since I've attended Dally in the Alley, and I'm trying to make a concerted effort to be less of a hermit, so I grabbed some cameras and wandered around for awhile this weekend. Parking was quite a challenge and after a few frustrating detours, we gave up and drove further north and then took the Q-line back down to the neighborhood. It was my first time using the Q-line, and usually when I see it go by it's empty, but it was packed when we got on. And somehow it was bumpier than the People Mover which seems like it's propelled mostly by vibes. Anyway.

Now in its 47th year, the Dally in the Alley is Detroit's longest running, free, and volunteer-led street festival, taking place in the Cass Corridor.

I definitely find shooting really busy events like this kind of challenging because I'm such a chickenshit, which is ironic because if I was hired to do event photography, I would feel absolutely zero qualms about getting the shots I felt I needed. But when it's just for me, I find it infinitely harder, because I don't have a ready answer for " Why are you shooting this?" and "Where will the photos go?" I really need to get over myself and the imposter syndrome as nearly everyone is a photographer or content creator these days. It probably helps that if I was doing this "for real" I would bring something like 70-200 so I could snipe people from a distance and be gone before they could catch me!

I was getting ready to call it a day and head back, when I started wandering towards one of the stages where a show had just wrapped up and people were leaving. Out of nowhere, Abdul El-Sayed hit the stage to say a few words. There was no one really close to the stage when this happened as it didn't seem planned, but people quickly started cheering and heading back towards the stage. I was one of the only people around with a camera and got a few shots. Kind of wished the long lens I had brought wasn't a manual focus one, but I still got a couple decent frames. I'm starting to feel like an Abdul stalker at this point as I just was at his event 2 days before. For the love of god Michigan, please do not screw this election up. This guy is the real deal.

It Shouldn't Be This Hard Tour

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:04:35 GMT

Last night I went out to Wayne Country Community College in Detroit to see Abdul El-Sayed speak as part of his It Shouldn't Be This Hard tour where he addresses local voters. I've been voting for a long time, but attending rallies or speaking engagements for political candidates is something new for me. There is no denying that there is a legitmate sense of excitement (and even relief) surrounding El-Sayed's run for senate, of which I myself am not immune. Smarts and charisma in 2026? Yes, please!

It is truly refreshing to see someone running who is extremely well-educated, and genuinely charming and funny. It's the energy we need. The audience was engaged and ready with thoughtful questions.

I wasn't sure what all would be allowed in, or if I could get a bag in without a press pass, so I just stuck with one lens and didn't bother with a flash. Here's some of my favorite images from the night.

Upcoming events can be found here.

The Night Market

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 18:16:29 GMT

Went back for a round of nighttime shots at the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival. I was looking forward to a return trip and had an idea for the kind of images I wanted to take, but that kind of went out the window when I got there. The problem with being an anxious person is that sometimes my brain overrides my desires and I just feel a bit paralyzed. I brought my R5 and intended to get tighter street shots, and more reaction shots from the crowd, but it just felt like an obnoxiously large camera for the event and like I was being rude. I 100% know this is just me being crazy, but it is what it is.

Not long after arriving I realized I left my phone in the car, and so I had to make the longish walk back alone to retrieve it. On the way back to the fair, I got these three little vignettes and then basically left the canon on my shoulder and shot with the x100vi for the rest of the night.

I wandered up and down the main drag a few times, and then we grabbed an expensive but delicious jerk chicken dinner from one of the vendors. I really liked the interplay between this ride and the teeny tiny little service station next to it, so I spent some time here, but I feel ambivalent about the shot. I wanted to try a second go of it, but the ride ended and I had to wait for all the people to get off and a new group to get on, which took forever, and then as they were finally spinning it up, the lights on the gas station turned off. Rude.

I've been playing around a bit with intentional camera movement (ICM) shots this week. Not really sure how I feel about them, but all the bright lights made it impossible to resist trying it out. This was my favorite of the bunch.

I think my favorite shots of the night were these much quieter images of women shopping the vendor stalls. Walking behind the tents, I was out of the way and not as noticeable, which allowed me to get some candids, and the clothes and tents themselves added some layers/framing that helped isolate subjects and provide context. I doubt anyone would look at these images and their first reaction would be "Detroit" and I love that. This is a city that people love to define, and it's much too nuanced to neatly fit into any kind of constraint.

I'm always looking for opportunities to make interesting shots with dogs or any animal really, and this guy lingered here long enough for me to get this image. Quite jealous of people with dogs that are chill enough to hang in a busy public space. My dog would never.

Unfortunately I was not able to go back for the last day, which has one of the biggest draws - the yacht races - an event where patrons from various neighborhood bars race pushcarts while the spectators throw water balloons at them. Next year, I hope.

Hamtramck Labor Day Festival

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:01:25 GMT

The Hamtramck Labor Day festival is an institution - it started back in 1980 during a time of uncertainty for the community after the closure of the Dodge Main factory which provided jobs to thousands of local residents. The city has always been a hub for immigrants, first the Polish, and now Arabs, Bangladeshi, Bosnians, and Serbians call this place home. Somehow despite living just a few miles away, this event completely escaped my notice until now. I was genuinely shocked and delighted by the scale of this event. I went to a smaller street festival here a few weeks earlier, and figured it would be more of the same, but there were rides, concession stands, multiple stages, and a bunch of street vendors.

Suffice it to say, this event will be going on my calendar for next year for sure.

ICE OUT Detroit

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 02:15:31 GMT

It was a cold, wet, and dreary Saturday, but that didn't stop hundreds of people from turning up on the streets of Detroit to protest ICE and the recent killing of Renee Nicole Good. We aren't nearly angry enough.

The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

January in the Oudolf Garden

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:57:57 GMT

I have a confession. Despite being an avid gardener for a number of years now, and generally understanding the benefit of native plants, I've been kind of terrible at actually planting any. I'm mainly a vegetable grower. Over the past five years I've torn down two raised beds that were rotting away and replaced them with 5 new metal raised beds. Then the next year I added four more. And the year after that I added more again. I'm up to 12 now. Along with an unruly assortment of grow bags for all the seedlings I don't have the heart to toss on the compost pile and can't find homes for. Inside the clearly defined boundaries of the beds, I have a plan. Everything outside of them however mainly is chaos. I have never really cared much about my garden's aesthetics beyond having healthy looking vegetable plants. But after the first frost, all that stuff is gone. Peppers and tomatoes are from South America and basically melt after the first hard freeze, sometimes still with plenty of fruit on the vine because usually by that time of the year I've run out of freezer space or the energy to preserve what's left. My garden turns to mush.

And here's the other dirty secret: for a long time I had a hard time appreciating natives because honestly, they just aren't as flashy as the hot-blooded annuals that put out tons of showy color. I found annuals to be mostly a waste of effort, all that nurturing and the expense of buying something that won't make it to next year is just unsatisfying. Cosmos and zinnias eventually won me over just for their sheer production and color, and cheerfulness, and marigolds and nasturtium have some utility in a vegetable patch, but don't talk to me about impatiens or petunias, or, god forbid, begonias. Boring.

But like the peppers and tomatoes, one hard frost and they are goners. One thing that separates native plants from the common annuals is winter interest .

Many of our Michigan native plants stand resolute through winter, providing structure, texture, and most importantly, offering their seeds to overwintering birds, as well as vital habitat to little creatures and insects who shelter in them. As someone who suffers a bit with Seasonal Affective Disorder once it starts getting dark at 6pm, I've realized that one thing that really helps me get through winter is finding excuses to get outside. So I gave myself an assignment of checking out the Oudolf Garden on Belle Isle over the winter to see what it can teach me about winter interest. Plus I figured if I could form an appreciations for a native garden in January, it would definitely help me appreciate it more in June.

For the uninitiated, the Oudolf Garden is a 3-acre garden designed by the world renowned Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. He is known for creating naturalistic gardens using native plants. The garden in total has over 250 different species of plants, and nearly 100k plants overall!

Being the procrastinator I am, I barely managed to get there before dusk this particular day, so these shots are definitely on the moodier side, but it kind of felt fitting for a garden in repose.

The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 19:17:31 GMT

A 43-foot tall depiction of Donald Trump as a marionette has been traveling throughout the US for several weeks and finally made a stop at the Lincoln Street art park. Part of a traveling art exhibition called Crooked and Obscene, all I can say is that this thing did NOT disappoint. We arrived as the sun was beginning to set, which added a nice warm glow that felt appropriate. Unfortunately the whole thing was fenced off, but I was able to climb up on something to get some shots without the fence lines.

This spectacle attracted a lot of attention, and seemed to be appreciated unanimously. People were pulling over to get selfies or just laugh at it. The Slow Roll crew breezed though at one point as well. Overall the atmosphere was great, healing even.

I really hope this thing gets a permanent installation somewhere. It's the memorial he deserves.

Photo Walk: Gordie Howe Bridge

lynn@stylishdetroit.com (Lynn Bernardi) — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 14:30:00 GMT

Another cloudy day downriver.

(I've decided to catch this blog up with some of my photo walks I've taken over the past couple months.)

The weather this past winter was absolutely disgusting. I've never been a fan of winter, but climate change is somehow making it even worse. When I was younger, I hated cold weather, but over the years I've kinda of made peace with it. With good enough warm outerwear it can be pretty bearable, if the wind isn't bad. The one thing I used to be able to count on was that there seemed to be more sunny days in the winter than in the summer. (If you didn't know, Michigan is one of the cloudiest states in the US. Yay.) But we haven't had anything approximating a true winter here in years.

Instead we get endless overcast, depressingly cloudy gloomy days that descend into full darkness by 5pm, an alarming amount of rain, and maybe if we are lucky 1-2 days of snow that almost immediately melts. The temperature often sticks around the 40's. Too cold to be pleasant, too warm for any snow to stick around. At least when it was colder, the snow would make everything seem bright and marginally more cheerful even when it was overcast.

Instead this "blah" is our new reality. But staying indoors for 6 months is even more unbearable, so I've been trying to just force myself to go out and shoot regardless. I literally took a photo the other day of a tree and I glanced at the back of the camera and thought I had a black and white film recipe selected because the image appeared to be in B&W. No, that's just literally the way it looks outside. It's stark. And the lack of directional light is really soul-destroying as a photographer.

One thing I have learned is that under these conditions, it's often better to just give up on shooting during the day entirely, and to use this constantly wet weather for shooting at night. Plus it gets dark so early that it's basically night all the time. But on this particular day, I had a film camera I wanted to use, so we ventured out. Being me, I can't leave the house with one camera, and I didn't particularly like the film shots from this location, so I'm posting some x100v shots today.

We drove aimlessly for an hour and ended up somewhere south of Zug Island and in an industrial area near the water. Every place we went by looked interesting in a post-apocalyptic dystopian way, but also like we would surely get arrested if we stepped foot out of the car. I ascribe to the school of thought of "the photo will be taken and I'll be back in the car WAY before the police show up" but Andy is always nervous about these things.

But I spied a sign for a public park, and we drove down this long weird industrial drive that really felt like we were trespassing and ended up in this tiny crappy waterfront park that most definitely had some terrible air quality and overlooked a similar industrial wasteland on the Canadian shore. But it did give us this vantage point to photograph the progress on the Gordie Howe Bridge. Some factory near by obligingly farted out giant plumes of smoke on a regular schedule which added some drama to an otherwise really drab landscape.

When i took this photo, I was really excited by this yellow handrail and that yellow thing the seagull was perched on which fell smack dab in the middle of the opening of the bridge. And then I got home and faced the reality that this was shot with a 23mm lens and that bird is freaking teeny tiny. Such is life as a photographer in the bleakest of midwestern states in the middle of January.

Afterwards we wandered around some more and I eventually found these really cool tugboats that I was very excited about, but the light was miserable and I only had wide lenses. We also walked over one of those old bridges where the platform is made of corrugated metal you can see through, which to me is terrifying. These yellow trucks were the most colorful thing I encountered on this excursion. Don't ask yourself why the grass is green in January, the planet is on fire. The piles of gravel in the background are the closest we get in these parts to hills, and thus were a novelty.

I'm appalled to admit I took this photo out of moving car, but I kinda like it. I realize the toning is absurd in these photos but there's only so many photos you can edit of a completely white featureless sky before you try to do something to "spice it up". I wish I hadn't cut off the bottom of those spindle things. I find industrial sites like this fascinating, I always want to know what they do, and wish I could properly explore them. I'm a sucker for grungy textures.

Old Books

lynn@stylishdetroit.com (Lynn Bernardi) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:47:14 GMT

When they ask if you want to see the rare photo book room, the answer is yes.

A couple weeks back, when it was still far too cold to contemplate doing a photo walk outside, Andy and I found ourselves at the venerable John K King Bookstore in Detroit. This place is such an institution, not sure why we don't visit it more often. Recently I've been moving all our photography books from home to our studio. I just never look at them at home because I've got no good place with great light where I can spread them out and pour over them without worrying about a random pet jumping on the table and messing them up. It seemed much wiser to bring them to the studio, but it's been an ordeal because our studio is on the second floor and photo books are HEAVY. And one day when we eventually move I'm really going to be questioning my life choices. But in the meantime, I'm finally spending some time actually looking at the books I've collected, and realizing it's been far too long since I've added any new titles.

That needed to change, so my sneaky idea was to say we were going to John King to just browse and maybe take a couple photos, but I planned to scour the photography section for some new additions to the photo library.

Unfortunately, the regular photography section was mostly a bust. It was very small, there wasn't many monographs in amongst dated how-to books, and overall it just wasn't that exciting. I found two Bernice Abbott books. Andy found a couple books and some old Hasselblad brochures. We've been on a bit of a Hasselblad kick lately (that's a story for another day), so he scooped those up. Then we just wandered around for awhile.

I always feel weird taking photos in stores, because A.) it seems obnoxious, and B.) I know this place probably gets overrun with people trying to shoot portraits in here so it feels like a cliche. But I mean, look at this place. I had my Fuji x100v, but what I did not have was a memory card with much space left on it so I got in an whole 12 photos or so before I couldn't shoot anymore. Oops. I'm sure I had more cards in my bag, but for some reason this place was packed and we couldn't even park in the lot, so we left our car blocks away. Plus I was on the 4th floor when I realized I was out of space. Oh well.

I'm not sure if it was just a typical Saturday (we haven't been here in years) or if someone recently wrote an article or did a TikTok about this place, but the first floor was just absolutely overrun with people. It was literally shoulder to shoulder and the stacks are already so dense that you often have to turn sideways just to navigate down a row. This didn't stop unaware people from blocking the entire aisle and leaving you stuck in a labyrinth with no other way forward. It was a claustrophobic nightmare, but thankfully the upper floors were much less crowded.

It's kind of crazy how old some of the books are that are just laying out here for the public to paw through.

After standing in a crowded checkout line for at least a good 20 minutes, we finally made it to the front. The cashier looked over our cache of books and before ringing anything up (this place is so old school you get a receipt printed on one of those accounting calculators) and asked "Are you interested in seeing the rare photo book section?" Um, yes. Of course we were. Not sure if our wallets were ready, but tell us more.

Turns out the 4 floors and approximately billion square feet of books that makes up the main building is just part of the store. There's outbuildings. Outbuildings which contain a rare photo section. You can make an appt to visit it, but the cashier told us to hang on and he'd see if someone was available and luckily there was. We were led out outside and to another a building where no lights were on and whisked down a hallway to end up in a room that was just full of amazing photo books. I should have taken photos in there with my phone at least. I honestly feel conflicted even mentioning it, because I'd prefer to keep this secret all to myself, but probably no one will read this blog anyway.

But yes, this was the selection I was dreaming of. There were so many titles I wanted. We could have easily dropped hundreds of dollars in this room, but we reigned it in. I found a cleaner copy of one of the Berenice Abbott books I already had grabbed for like $5 more, we found a pristine copy of Mary Ellen Mark's 25 Years, which turned out to be a signed copy, and we scored this hefty Koudelka book. There were definitely some rarer books with steep price tags but there was a lot of affordable books as well.

An Introduction

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 20:01:47 GMT

The part where I explain this...

Do people even still blog anymore? I guess I'll find out.

Hello there. Thank you for showing up here and being curious enough to find this post.

Photography has been an interest of mine from the time I was a sullen teenager and discovered an old Canon FT-b while sneaking through my mom’s closet. Not long after I found myself in a high school photography class, peering over a print bathing in developer. Like many people, the moment that white emulsion slid into the tray and an image came to life from nothingness, I was hooked. It felt like magic.

It would be many more years before I would finally allow myself to consider photography a viable career. Instead I bounced around doing things that felt safer, even if they brought me little joy.

Fast forward to now. Over the last 15 years I have photographed weddings, built a small real estate media business with my partner, and done some portrait and branding work. Once photography became a way to pay the bills, the type of work that originally drew me to the medium went out the window. That led to some serious burnout, where I didn’t want to think about or consume photography, much less take photos in my down time.

Thankfully that fog slowly lifted. I am remembering what drew me to photography and making an effort to go out there and take images for me. And while I hope that can lead to some more formal and collaborative projects more in line with my passions one day, for now I'm just enjoying making photos for me.

My plan for this blog is to share the images that don’t fit anywhere else. To try out experimental work, test out funky old cameras, shoot with weird lenses, and document my photo walks. The one thing I have kind of faulted myself for many years is that I don’t have a style. Everyone always tells you a style is important. But for someone like me, who probably would have an adhd diagnosis if I had the executive dysfunction to follow through with making an appointment, it feels impossible. I have too many interests.

So this is the place I will share those things that don’t neatly fit into a box.

This will also be a digital commonplace book of sorts - a place where I can talk about work that inspires me, share some of my favorite photographers, and talk process at times. If that sounds like something that appeals to you, I hope you’ll stick around!