TOP LEFT: Fishing boats head out of the Muskegon Lake Channel at sunrise. CENTER LEFT: Sand dunes along the eastern
shore of Lake Michigan. BOT TOM LEFT: Blueberry fields in the fall as the bushes die back. ABOVE: The Upper Peninsula’s
famous Pictured Rocks in winter.
part of Marge’s DNA. With a couple of
notable departures, that is. For 10 years,
Marge sold posters of the EAA AirVenture
convention in Oshkosh (before it was
called “AirVenture”) that featured vertical
aerial shots of the entire event. The posters were so popular, she said, that she
came home the first year and bought her
husband a new car with the proceeds. The
effort of shooting, producing posters, and
working the show (as anyone who’s ever
worked a booth at AirVenture can attest)
were so wearing, however, that she eventually gave it up.
In addition to commissioned photo
shoots, Marge has also produced three
books of her work: Above West Michigan,
Above the North, and her newest book,
Above the Lighthouses: Lake Michigan.
Despite the business nature of her fly-
ing, Marge is—at least in some ways—the
epitome of the recreational pilot. Think
about it. She has spent the better part of
30 years and 7,000 flight hours flying in
circles, focused not on “getting” some-
where, but on capturing the beauty of
wherever she is. Indeed, she said, her
goal has always been “to capture my
emotional experience, instead of just
taking a pretty picture.”
Perhaps that’s why her photos are so
good. Because even now, after all those
years and hours, she said flying still feeds
her. “If I go out and go fly for a day,” she
said, “I come back feeling great. And then
I can handle it all again.”
That also might be why she has no imme-
diate plans to retire. “I have two expensive
things I love to do, and they pay for each
other, with enough left over to get me out
of having to cook,” she said with a laugh.
“What more can you ask out of life?”
Lane Wallace, EAA 650945, has been an aviation columnist, editor, and author for more than 20 years. More
of her writing can be found at www.SportAviation.org.
For more information and images, see Marge’s website:
www.Photography-Plus.com.
