“Sleeping Bear and elsewhere”

By Lindsay Simmons
Sun contributor

He’s a world traveler, but after 57 years of visiting Leelanau County, Craig Capehart still can’t get enough of the area. Capehart recently combined his travels, his family history of visiting The Homestead resort and his passionate love for photography. The result is his first public photo show, “Sleeping Bear and Elsewhere,” where Capehart will share his talents and experiences, and hopefully make a little money to fund the next trip.

“As a kid, I came up with family every year for a few weeks and stayed at The Homestead,” Capehart explains. His family made the trek from Indianapolis at least twice a year. He explained that during the mid-1900s, The Homestead was “more like a camp with dorms and a cafeteria.” Capehart’s mother especially appreciated the time to rest while employees cooked and cleaned for the resort’s guests.

Some of Capehart’s best times were spent skiing the slopes of Sugarloaf and exploring the mouth of the Crystal River. He attended the Leelanau Summer Camp for Boys, and later became a counselor for the program. Back home in Indiana, Capehart explored photography and joined his junior high school photo club. “I started making money by taking group pictures of the baseball team and Cub Scouts,” he recalls.

The years following high school were busy for Capehart. He earned five college degrees from different schools, including a law degree from Indiana University. If he found himself traveling for business, he would capture his surroundings on film. Then, when he retired in 2004, Capehart set out to see the world with his camera in tow.

“I never grew up,” Capehart laughs. “I’m going backwards.” His hard work as a professional has allowed him to see the deserts of the Middle East and the glaciers of the North Pole. He has been to India, Cambodia and Vietnam. He’s seen the isolated lands of Antarctica, populated only by “penguins and some seals.”

Capehart does not discriminate. “If I see it and it looks interesting, I take a photograph.” He has a literal style. “I do very little Photo-shopping,” Capehart explains. He minimally crops, adjusts tint and color balance, and he describes his work as being void of “fantasy and creation.” He functions exclusively on-site as a travel photographer, never working in a studio.

“If I’m in a strange place, everything looks interesting,” Capehart says. He can’t pinpoint a favorite subject. He uses his Olympus Four Thirds DSLR to capture it all, and so far, the automatic dust reduction feature of this camera has come in handy the most.

“I take about 300 photos to get one good one,” Capehart says. “Some of the photos I think are my best, the public could care less about.”

Until now, Capehart’s “public” has been friends and family. His peers began asking to see photos of his travels: requests for take-home copies of Capehart’s pictures soon followed. “I realized I could charge them for it,” he says. The appealing idea of making money on his hobby has forced Capehart to be slow and careful with the production of his photos. “I’m looking for feedback,” he says. Personally, this helps him become “validated as an artist.”

With the explosion of photo-hosting websites and the apparent ease of downloading pictures from the Internet, Capehart has struggled with the notion of whether or not to publish his photos online. Although many photographers use watermarking or low-resolution photos to deter illegal distribution, Capehart currently does not have any work online. “I’m trying to market on the Internet to draw attention to the gallery,” he says. The photos he does sell are priced in the low-to-mid range. Capehart believes that a photograph priced too low results in a less thoughtful, less personal decision to buy the piece.

Capehart hires a lab to print all of the photos he shows, including the ones that will be on display at the Glen Arbor Art Association on Friday, July 17 from 6-9 p.m., Saturday, 1-6 and Sunday, July 19, from 1-3. He first brought this collection of photographs to Glen Arbor over the past Memorial Day weekend, when he showed them in the linen closet of the Leelanau Vacation Rentals building. Only his second public photo show, Capehart is excited to talk about his experiences behind the photographs in “Sleeping Bear and Elsewhere.”

As an added attraction, Capehart’s daughter Kelly will perform an authentic tango dancing demonstration on Friday. Kelly learned the dance while she was studying Spanish in Argentina, and partner Phillip Schwein will join her.

On account of Capehart’s time spent at The Homestead enjoying its surrounding beauty, the resort’s grounds are still his favorite place to photograph the county. “The mouth of the river, the high hills, the ski slopes and the lake” are among the reasons he will always cherish his vacation spot. “If they’d plant a few cherry trees, they’d have it all,” he adds.

Capehart invites everyone to come celebrate his love of Leelanau and his adventures traveling, this weekend at the Glen Arbor Art Association.