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Shadow Valley Motors

Shadow Valley Motors in the Palouse
Shadow Valley Motors in the Palouse

As I have stated in previous posts, the Palouse offers many surprises.  This image was made at a place I have been going to for years.  It is known as Shadow Valley Motors and is a collection of old trucks, an old Texaco gas station and more.  These are arranged by a fellow that does this as a hobby.  Funny thing is he doesn’t have an iPhone, computer or even an email address and he says he never thought the place would be a must see for photographers on tours in the Palouse.  I have given him a pile of images I have made at his property over the years.  He’s a cool guy and has even more things he’ll be adding.  I plan to go back to the Palouse in the spring.  This summer’s harvest and my last visit wasn’t the best for pictures.  They have been suffering a terribly hot and dry summer which made them have to harvest the wheat a month early.

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Only In The Palouse

Nice guy, old car and old barn in the Palouse
Nice guy, old car and old barn in the Palouse

The Palouse offers up a lot of things.  While photographing there last week we came across this barn.  As we were shooting the owners of the barn came out and were real interested in what we were doing.  They went to great lengths to get this old car out of the barn and place it where we could take a picture of it with the barn as a background.  I did this image with my iPhone.

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Old Truck

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This truck and shed remain unchanged even after fifty plus years

For years I have visited the Palouse in Washington.  It is a beautiful area with rolling hills and all sorts of surprises like old trucks in fields and abandoned houses.  Every year for the last n6 years I visited this one location and I am amazed that it is still there and has never been vandalized or even removed.  There is a small farm along one of the main roads.  You can’t miss it as the barn is collapsing  in on itself.  Off to the side is a small shed and this truck sits in the shed unchanged for 50 plus years.  It is like one day someone just left and all the things they were working on were just left as is.  This is typical of a number of places you find in the Palouse.

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Dry, Dusty and Hot

The Palouse - Sunset with Sony a7r II and Tamron 150-600mm
The Palouse – Sunset with Sony a7r II and Tamron 150-600mm

I have been in the Palouse the last few days shooting with the new Sony a7r II. What a beautiful camera!   This camera will be the camera of the year.  It has 42.6 mega pixels and capture gorgeous files and videos.  I’ll have more on this on the Luminous-Landscape site when we do our review.  This image was made at sunset in a very dry and dusty Palouse.  The farmers have had a hard year and the harvest was 4 weeks early due to such dry weather.  This shot was made from the highest point in the at sunset and I thinks says very well what the Palouse is like this year.

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Under The Bridge

Under A Bridge In Chicago
Under A Bridge In Chicago

My route for my downtown Chicago walks covers many miles.  It is one of my favorite thing to do in any city but Chicago offers up so much.  I took a walk down the river towards Michigan Ave. and saw this bridge.  I was underneath it and used the double exposure function of Hipstamatic to achieve a color BW look for the bridge and make it somewhat abstract.  I kind of like it.

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Look Up

Grant Park Chicago
Grant Park Chicago

Wandering around Chicago I usually visit Grant Park.  The morning there are always special.  There is a big open air theater where they have musicals and it is an architectural masterpiece.  I usually use my long lenses and have fund finding the abstract but having only the iPhone on this walk made me see different and work to find the shot.  This is one of them I found.

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The Bean Again

My Reflection In The Bean
My Reflection In The Bean

Every visit to Chicago is an adventure.  As a routine I get up real early and walk the streets and visit places like the Chicago Bean and bug reflective chrome sculpture before the tourists do.  It’s fun having the whole place to myself and I have done a ton of cool images there.  Here is one from my most recent trip.  Shot on my morning iPhone expedition.

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Chicago Head

Head Statue
Head Statue

On my last trip to Chicago I did my morning walk with just an iPhone.  I wanted shoot with an iPhone as it makes me see things differently.  I used the Hipstamatic add to create the images you’ll see over the next few days.  Seeing square is also challenging and proper framing of what you do see can make the ordinary look a bit different.  This is a rather new sculpture in Chicago and it allowed for some creative angle.  However, sometimes the straight on shot works best.

 

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Buffalo Fire Boat

Buffalo Fireboat
Buffalo Fireboat

Having been a firefight for many years I get excited when anything firefighting wise comes up.  When we were in Buffalo shooting Grain Silos we are given the option to take a ride on a Fireboat to the water intake facility in the lake.  What a cool trip that was.  This is an image made while we were docked at the intake facility and the firefighters decided to clean off the dock.

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Death Vally Sand and Brush

IMG_2174-2I am in catch up m ode and sharing images that have been sitting in my Blog files for a while.  Today I’ll share two images from Death VAlley.  The whole Death Valley things is a bit surreal.  It’s a beautiful place.  It’s a place you don’t visit in the summer.  It gets amazingly nasty hot.  Winter time is the time to visit.  The image above was shot at dawn when I was shooting sunrise in the dunes near Stovepipe Wells.   The image below was a bit further out in Death Valley and I found an old shack and a hundred feet from it was this roller skate.  Now who roller skates in the Dessert?

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