Northern Summers is a photographic series that explores the nostalgia, beauty, and untamed character of Michigan’s northern and Upper Peninsula landscapes. As a child, I would stock up on disposable film cameras during monthly grocery trips to Marquette, using them to capture fleeting moments that felt both ordinary and magical. This series revisits that spirit—warm sunlight stretching across high latitudes, tannin-stained rivers winding through forests, dappled light filtering through cedars, and the rugged shoreline that defines the region.

Though the area has grown in popularity—and as I grow older, my visits back grow fewer—it remains dreamlike: a place where wilderness continues to shape memory and identity. Through these photographs, I hope to share the color, magic, and enduring spirit of the landscape that helped shape who I am.

A layered, blurry perspective of green trees and ferns in a remote forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan outside of the small town of Grand Marais.
A building is illuminated by a reddish-orange streetlight surrounded by trees that silhouette a purple sky.
Two people sit silhouetted on a small cliff, one holding a fishing pole,above water with hills and a pink sunset in the background in Marquette, Michigan..
Sun light is reflected on the surface of water, with the light from the ripples are cast on the bottom of a lake.
A close up of leaves of a cedar tree, blowing in a breeze, with a blue sky and trunk of the tree in the background.
A field of yellow, golden rod flowers, in a prairie, with trees in the background in northern Michigan.
Au Sable Sand Dunes are framed between the leaves of a plant, with Lake Superior in the distance.
A man stands silhouetted against water while standing on the edge of a cliff.
A photo documenting the environment and nature the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan. By Michigan photographer Charlotte Smith
A calm river winds through a thick, green marsh in Grand Marais, Michigan, a remote town in the Upper Peninsula.
A close up of teal colored ferns with small, yellow flowers dotted around the plant.
A close up of water with small waves on the surface with a pastel-colored sunset in the background.
A bird's eye view of light brown, naturally occuring clay splays out from a crevice in a from a sand dune on a beach.
Multiple small white flowers pop out of green foliage in the woods of northern Michigan.
A close up of small, earth-toned orange and blue stones sit atop a larger, reddish brown rock.
A mile high perspective of small, unhabited, tree covered islands in Lake Superior against a hazy, gray sky. is
People stand dotted on the surface of the Black Rock waves lap on the rocky shoreline in the foreground.
A close up of a colorful, hand painted stone on a beach. The stone has a sunset scene painted on it.
A fence is silhouetted in the foreground of a pink and blue Lake Michigan sunset.
A car with it's brake lights on begins to drives away on a remote road in northern Michigan with power lines silhouetted by a sunset.
A close up of lines of copper inlaid into a blue-gray rock.
A dream like view of beach grass reflecting light from a golden sunset with a peninsula of land and lake are in focus in the distance.