User:Notorious4life/gallery



UNDER RECONSTRUCTION
 * Need to make an accurate image count (all photos included but need recounted)
 * Add coordinates to some sections
 * Merge unsorted images from User talk:Notorious4life/gallery
 * Add uncategorized images to Wikimedia Commons
 * Eliminate sections by region and switch to one alphabetical list



This user sub-page is a collection of all of the self-taken camera images that I have uploaded to Wikipedia. As of 18 June 2024, I have uploaded 1,590 of my own images. I do not take credit or keep track of images that I uploaded from other sources, such as free use historic or government photos. Additionally, I do not count or keep track of the numerous PNG image maps I made for the state of Michigan, although I may organize them at some point.

All of my photos happen to take place within the state of Michigan, as I have visited many places within my own state. These images are almost all geographic related images: communities, parks, bodies of water, buildings, etc. I have also uploaded uncounted hundreds of image maps for various Michigan municipality articles, but I do not keep track of those in my image counts, but I may compile them separately in the future.

Some of my images have been added to Wikimedia Commons (a process I let robots and other users do), where they are able to be found on other sites and internet searches. I am not a member of that project, although I may partake more once I have finished categorizing my images. By choice, all of my images uploaded to Wikipedia are released into the public domain for any use under Creative Commons licensing. Many of my images appear throughout Wikipedia and search engines (and even mirror sites and other commercial articles), and I do not wish to hold any copyright authority over any of my own images nor do I request credit for such images.

I have used a number of cell phones and digital cameras in the past. Since December 2019, my current camera is the relatively inexpensive and convenient Canon PowerShot SX620 HS.

Photo request
I do accept photo requests if another user wants to me supply photos and upload them to Wikipedia. A long time ago, I welcomed many photo requests, but I was bombarded with extremely lengthy lists of photo requests for places I didn't think were necessary for Wikipedia, such as grocery stores and other random buildings. Many of the lesser-valued photos may be in the Commons, but I am not an active member of that project. Mostly, I take images with the sole purpose of putting it directly in a Wikipedia article.

If you would like to request photos, feel free to message me on my talk page. I live in southwestern Wayne County and am in close proximity to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Adrian, and Monroe. I also travel up north to Roscommon County several times a year.

Image standards
I believe that every article should have an infobox and an image within that infobox. Other images should be placed appropriately within an article to where it is aesthetically structured and easy to read. I don't like articles that have irrelevant photos wedged in, and articles with many pictures should simply have a gallery section or a link to the image collection on Wikipedia Commons. Most of my earlier images are in the 4:3 format, which I only like using if the focal point of the image needs the extra space. Otherwise, I convert all my images to a 16:9 widescreen format. The majority of my photographs are of city settings, and converting to widescreen usually eliminates unnecessary roadway or excessive skyline portions of an image in order to focus on the buildings and environment at hand. Most of the images that are in the 4:3 format are historic buildings that take up most of the image since I wasn't able to get far enough back in order to take a 16:9 image.

I don't like images that are of poor quality or barely focus on the image. I don't like irrelevant photos being shoehorned into articles, such as a closeup photo of a local ice cream shop being featured as the defining picture of a community or an individual campsite being used to represent a state park. If there are better images available on Wikipedia (or in Wikimedia Commons), I will simply use someone else's image in the appropriate article and usually not bother uploading my own less-quality image of the subject.

I have tens-of-thousands of photos on my computer, and I'm not going to shoehorn unnecessary or excessive images into an article. For instance, if I have a really good lighthouse pictures but another almost identical image appears in that article, I won't replace it with one of my own for the sake of having another image on Wikipedia.

Southeast Michigan
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This section is for images that located within Southeast Michigan, which I have categorized as being the Metro Detroit region for simplicity. These counties include the 12 counties of Genesee, Hillsdale, Jackson, Lapeer, Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw, and Wayne. I only have gallery images for six of these counties, while a few random images exist for the other four counties that I have rarely visited.


 * Genesee County: 1
 * Hillsdale County: 137
 * Jackson County: 3
 * Lapeer County: 26
 * Lenawee County: 108
 * Livingston County: 50
 * Macomb County: 0
 * Monroe County: 150
 * Oakland County: 3
 * St. Clair County: 106
 * Washtenaw County: 36
 * Wayne County: 215

Hillsdale County
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Hillsdale County seemed to be one of those counties that was ignored when it came to useful information and photos. Perhaps, I listed too many items to photograph, and it required me to drive around on two different days. I made the list a long time ago but never seemed to find time to make it to Hillsdale County, so I decided to go on a whim in December. Some of the photos came out snowy and gloomy, and it was very cold. I think everything possible is now photographed.

Lapeer County
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In my quest to take more pictures for the National Register of Historic Places, I ventured as far as I wanted to drive to see the county's National Register of Historic Places on a single day in July 2011. As far as I remember, it is my only time ever going to Lapeer County. The most distant picture was over two hours away from where I lived at the time. I failed to accurately picture three historic properties—Columbiaville station, Warren Perry House, and the Younge Site—due to poor directions in my pre-smart phone era. Because of the long distance, a return trip to the county to photograph the same places for updated images is highly unlikely.

For convenience, the coordinates listed for each NRHP image coincides with the actual coordinates of the subject and not the specific coordinates from where I was standing to take the photo.

Lenawee County
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I very rarely visit the county just to the west of Monroe County. I've probably been there only a dozen times, mostly just passing through Irish Hills or visiting some of the state parks in the area. In May 2010, I made my first venture there to take photos and create articles for the county's National Register of Historic Places. I've contemplated going back to update the historic photos, but everything is so far apart, mostly rural, and that task is very time consuming.

The Irish Hills area is only 35 minutes away, so I have gone to the county several times in recent years for state park and fishing trips. During a boring and unseasonably warm Christmas break from work, I made recent trips through the county to take municipality images to try out my new camera.

Livingston County
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Monroe County
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Since I lived near Monroe for most of my life up until 2013 and still routinely visit the area, the majority of my earlier images center around Monroe County. It was very convenient for me to take pictures of historic sites, municipalities, and geographic features. The majority of pictures within the county's articles are my own images. Most of them date from 2009–2010, and the camera I used at the time didn't exactly take the best pictures given my budget at the time. Some of them might be of poor quality, outdated, or useless. In fact, some of them are simply junk photos that were uploaded many years ago, and I certainly wouldn't use them in articles anymore. For that reason, I have occasionally gone back to revisit some of these locations over 10 years later in order to take better images.

When I joined Wikipedia in 2005, the county didn't have very much useful information. No, I didn't create every article and place the county on the map, but I did upload the majority of photos and created numerous articles, especially pertaining to the National Register of Historic Places and municipalities.

Washtenaw County
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While I have never lived in Washtenaw County, I have been there many times and currently live near the county line. I do not like going to Ann Arbor, and most places in the county already have enough pictures. I have gone there a few times to take photographs of dams and small communities, such as Whittaker and Willis, as well as some geographic features. I also go fishing quite frequently at Ford Lake.

St. Clair County
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I ventured to St. Clair County for the first time ever in April 2011 to take photos of the National Register of Historic Places. It was about a 90-minute drive from where I lived at the time. The trip was successful, even though I timed the trip poorly. My camera at the time was not very good at taking pictures in low light. I've been to the county several times since then, including Harsens Island.

Wayne County
Back to the top While I now live in southwestern Wayne County, most places within the county already have existing images; uploading my own image for places that already have suitable images would be pointless. This section lists photos not within the city of the Detroit, which are listed in their own subsection. I have recently uploaded some municipality images for the county, as some more recognizable cities did not even have images. I also added a few photos related to the Michigan State Historic Sites within the county.

Detroit
Back to the top This subsection lists photos taken within the city limits of Detroit. Many articles within the city already have suitable images, and driving around Detroit for the purpose of taking photos is often undesirable. Most of my images are outdated school photos and some of the neighborhoods around Detroit. At times, I took photo requests from other users, but that soon became overwhelming and boring. This section features my only uploaded photos using my old Motorola DROID3 cell phone. On a trip to Detroit, I failed to charge my digital camera and didn't feel like going home and making a return trip. Detroit is only about 20 mi from where I live, but I rarely go there except for fishing, Detroit Tigers games, or to visit some riverfront parks.

Comerica Park
Back to the top This is an unusual subsection that I use for 11 images of players I took at Comerica Park (42.33917°N, -83.04861°W) during a game on September 29, 2022. I have been to numerous Detroit Tigers games, and my focus of going is not to take a million pictures but to actually try to enjoy the game. I decided to take my digital camera with me. From the outfield standing area near the statues, I was able to zoom in far enough to take some photos with good detail and added them to their respective player's article. If I wanted to stand there and photograph every player on the field, I could have, but that is not my purpose when going to a game.

Central Michigan
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This section includes photos from the Central Michigan region of the state, which has no official definition. For my own purposes, I unofficially categorized 15 counties into the Central Michigan region: eight counties in the geographic center of the state, three northern Thumb counties that aren't classified in Metro Detroit, and the four counties of the Lansing–East Lansing metropolitan area. Other central counties are excluded if they can later be classified as part of West Michigan—a region in which I have no uploaded photos and very rarely visited.

As of now, only Clare County Gladwin County have a full list of photos, while some of the other counties have random photos, as I haven't really spent much time traveling around this region, other than passing through on my way up north or visiting some of the state parks and lighthouses. I'm sure at some point I will visit some of the more northern counties in this region, such as Clare and Isabella counties. Some of these counties have no photos from me and seem to have a general lack of uploaded photos anywhere.


 * Arenac County: 1
 * Bay County: 8
 * Clare County: 60
 * Clinton County: 8
 * Eaton County: 0
 * Gladwin County: 47
 * Gratiot County: 4
 * Huron County: 14
 * Ingham County: 2
 * Isabella County: 13
 * Midland County: 0
 * Saginaw County: 11
 * Tuscola County: 2
 * Sanilac County: 0
 * Shiawassee County: 0

Clare County
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Gladwin County
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Even though I go to Roscommon County just to the west numerous times a year, there isn't really anything worth traveling to Gladwin County. I have passed through the county on many occasions though. In September 2021, I decided to drive around the county and take as many photos as I could for the purposes of uploading to Wikipedia articles.

Isabella County
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While I pass through this county almost every time I go up north, I rarely stop here, although I have been to Mount Pleasant several times. Whenever I do go up north, sometimes I will stop at a location close to the highway just to take a few photos. In the future, I may travel around the county and take more photos.

Uncategorized locations
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These are images that do not fit into the geographic sections listed above. They are from the southern Lower Peninsula—mostly Huron (The Thumb area), but a few other random locations as well.

Northern Michigan
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These images are from the counties located in the Northern Lower Peninsula. Some counties are listed individually in their own sections below. This section is simply miscellaneous images from the area. Going to this region provides for great photo opportunities, as many municipalities, landmarks, and parks simply do not have available photos on Wikipedia.

Charlevoix County
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I don't think I have ever been to Charlevoix County until I passed through in July 2019 on a daytrip, where I uploaded a few gloomy photos of Fisherman's Island State Park, Young State Park, Charlevoix South Pier Light Station, and a few places in between. For a camping trip in summer 2022, I decided to revisit Fisherman's Island, and I snagged an elusive lakefront campsite six months in advance. While there, I decided to spend more time in Charlevoix and driving around other places in the county. Unfortunately, Beaver Island was not in the time or budget for the trip but may be in the future if I want to spend hundreds of dollars just to take the ferry.

Cheboygan County
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Crawford County
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Crawford County is located just north of Roscommon County, where I visit several times a year, but I very rarely go into this county unless aimlessly driving around. North Higgins Lake State Park and Hartwick Pines State Park are the only places I routinely go when in Crawford County, although I did drive around to get photos of the few municipalities.

Kalkaska County
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Kalkaska County is located just west of Crawford County, although I have very rarely been to this county unless passing through to another location. There isn't much to see or do in the county, and very few images of it existed on Wikipedia. I think I took photos of every possible location to include in an article, although the state game areas were largely inaccessible.

Missaukee County
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Missaukee County is just west of Roscommon County, where I visit several times a year. I usually only venture to the county to go to the Reedsburg Dam, which is right across the county line. It is a very rural and sparely-populated county that doesn't really have anything to see, except tons of farms and roadside communities. I decided to spend a day driving all over the county in order to take municipality photos, which took about six hours. The Dead Stream Flooding State Wildlife Management Area is located within both Missaukee and Roscommon, so images of that area appear within both county lists, depending on where I was standing.

Ogemaw County
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I made a one-day trip to drive around Ogemaw County in August 2021. Previously, I had only passed through the county, usually along M-55 through West Branch. This is the first county where I made a detailed list of coordinates and preplanned the route for the best time efficiency, and surprisingly, there were no errors—except one. I completely missed the Cleveland Park Pavilion state historic site, even though it was on the original destination list. I might have some more images that I might add later, such as some for the Rifle River State Recreation Area, but the list below contains the core topics to complete the county.

Oscoda County
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I am not sure at any point in my life I had been to Oscoda County, although I think I visited Mio when I was younger. There is not very much in the county, so I decided to make a quick trip there to take municipality pictures, as well as local bars and wander around numerous seasonal roads of suspect quality. I took a lot of cool pictures, but I limit those here to township halls, intersection communities, a few post offices, and images for the Mio Dam—a poor article that needs rewritten.

Otsego County
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Otsego County is one of those up north counties that is too up north to regularly visit, although I passed through the county every time I've gone to the Upper Peninsula. I only rarely stopped in the county when I needed gas or last-minute things from the Gaylord Walmart. In November 2021, I decided to make my last trip of the year to photograph local areas, and the weather was abysmal. Normally, I never take meaningful photos when it becomes too cold and ugly outside. At times, I had to wait for it to stop snowing.

Roscommon County
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I've been visiting this area for pretty much my entire life, as it always seemed to be the childhood vacation location for my family. In 1997, my parents purchased property in Gerrish Township, and while it is a dumpy mobile home, it serves as a free place to stay whenever I want—or as a temporary stopover on my way further up north. The county seemed to be neglected on Wikipedia, and I've done my part to ensure there are enough pictures and newly created articles for the county that I visit around 5–6 times a year.

There is not much else that can be written about the county, except for maybe a few more state game areas if enough information and suitable images can be gathered.

Wexford County
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Wexford County seemed to have been largely ignored on Wikipedia, and the majority of articles had no images. I visited Wexford County for the first time I remember in May 2017 to visit Mitchell State Park, but I spent most of the day there. Only one photo was uploaded, as I never went back through my photos of that day to see which ones I wanted to use. I returned in July 2022 with a planned map to get as many photos as I could. I drove all over the county on one day and then returned on another day to spend more time in the city of Cadillac. Despite my plans, I missed the Frank J. Cobbs House, which was last on the list. Two other state historic sites also don't exist anymore.

Upper Peninsula
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These images are from the state's Upper Peninsula. Since I live in the southeastern portion of the state, it is usually impractical to routinely travel that far. I typically go to the U.P. at least once a year for a vacation. The farthest west I have been in the U.P. is Fayette Historic State Park and Munising. I have never been to far places like Copper Harbor, Porcupine Mountains, Ironwood, Menominee, and certainly not Isle Royale. I have been to Mackinac Island many times and have visited many places in the eastern portion of the peninsula.

Alger County
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I have only been to Alger County on two occasions: August 2016 and June 2021. On the first trip, I simply passed though to Munising to take the Pictured Rocks cruise and camp at Twelvemile Beach. I have hundreds of photos of Pictured Rocks, but I never felt like sorting through them to see which ones are good enough for Wikipedia since there are a large number of photos already posted. In June 2021, I spent more time visiting Grand Marais and taking numerous photos of that area and only ventured briefly westward to visit Au Sable Light for the first time.

Chippewa County
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I have been to Chippewa County on several occasions, having visited Tahquamenon Falls State Park three times and Whitefish Point Light twice. In July 2018, I spent a week camping at Brimley State Park and visiting Sault Ste. Marie, but I didn't venture far during this time and probably missed numerous photo opportunities. Although, I have hundreds of photos from that trip, I never really sorted through them to see which ones can be used in Wikipedia. I plan to take another trip to Tahquamenon Falls in the future, with the hopes of making it to Vermilion Point and exploring more areas.

Luce County
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I first visited Luce County in August 2016 when I merely passed through the county from Tahquamenon to Munising, but I returned on a solo camping trip to stay at Muskallonge Lake State Park in June 2021. While the purpose of this camping trip was not to merely take Wikipedia photos, it did serve as a guideline for several places to visit, as well as some in neighboring Alger and Mackinac counties. The trip was complicated with bad weather and a faulty car, but I managed to explore every corner of the county, including the trek to Crisp Point Light.

Mackinac County
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I have been to St. Ignace and Mackinac Island numerous times. I have hundreds of photos of Mackinac Island, but I don't plan to upload every possible image that already exists. Some of my oldest Wikipedia photos are from Mackinac Island when I visited in August 2008. I have since visited the county several times, including passing through the western portion of the county to photograph numerous unincorporated communities for the intent of creating their articles: Brevort, Curtis, Engadine, Epoufette, Garnet, Gould City, Naubinway. I may return soon to the eastern portion of the county and someday hope to visit Bois Blanc Township.

Schoolcraft County
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I have only visited Schoolcraft County one time when we went camping at Indian Lake State Park in August 2017. There wasn't really much planned for the trip, except going to Kitch-iti-kipi and fishing on Indian Lake, as well as venturing back and forth to Manistique. I took a ton of photos of the weeklong trip, and maybe some will be uploaded later on, including some from Fayette Historic State Park in neighboring Delta County—the farthest west I have ever traveled in the state.