While traversing the Palouse last week I came across many an odd things. It’s a beautiful area but there are just things there that stop you. I am driving down this country road in the middle of no where and then all of a sudden there is this Texaco gas station straight out of the fifties just sitting there. I thought I went through a time portal. This place had the signs, a water fountain, old cars, gas pumps and even a police car. So I spent some time shooting pictures of it. I’ll kake sure I take my PODAS workshop group to it.
In my travels I have been fortunate enough to see wildlife at its best. What amazes me is how wildlife shows unbridled love. I was in Antarctica which is a life changing experience in itself where I got to see wildlife in all sorts of forms. I watched whales and their calves together. The way a mother whale teaches its young. I saw Orcas that travel as a pack (family) take care of each other and their young. I have been in Alaska and have seen how grizzlies are with their young. And, as shown in this picture I have seen penguins express their love to each other. Love is pretty damn powerful!
Old Vegas was neon signs and times gone by. A visit to the Neon Boneyard where old Las Vegas signs go when they die is a great experience. Enjoy this image done at the boneyard with a GH2 and a 5 exposure HDR in PhotoMatix.
I am in Long Island, NY for a few days working in the Phase One offices and having meetings. Pouring down rain. Dreary.
Well it’s another day and another plane ride. Today it’s New York for a few days. Need to spend some time in the office working on pushing the PODAS workshops along and making sure we are set to go for a busy rest of the year. We have a PODAS workshop every month for the rest of the year. Also, I have a trip to China coming up in the next month to promote a workshop there. Life at Phase One is always busy.
Today’s image is another take on the barn with the truck I posted the other day. This time from the front with some effects thrown onto it for artistic sake. Shot on a P65 and then converted using an iPhone app. It’s just fun. The details in the original Phase One file are amazing. Definitely be working on some big prints when time allows. Think I’ll post some Neon Graveyard images the next few days.
I am home from the Palouse even if it is only one day. enough time to unpack and re-pack as I head to New York this week. The trip to the Palouse was very succesful. I did a lot to prep for the workshop I am leading there this August. A lot goes into running a workshop with 30 some odd people. Hotels, meeting rooms, vans, routes, box lunches, restaurants, timing and so on. I believe we are set though and this workshop will be fantastic one.
During my trip I drove a lot of back roads because that is all there is out there and came across many an interesting site. One of these sites was an old Texaco station stuck in the middle of no where. The old barn with yesterdays image and a lot of abandoned cars and homes. I’ll post these over the next few weeks. Tomorrow I’ll post the truck image from yesterday shown at a different angle and manipulated a bit. I had some time to play with the image while at the airport yesterday.
Todays shot is the front of one of the abandoned houses I found. Can you tell me a good reason some one would build stairs that go up to the wall of the house? A lot of what I saw was very surreal.
I am heading home today after spending two days in the Palouse area of Washington state. I spent a lot of time driving back road finding places for the group to shoot that is part of the workshop here in August. In my drive I discovered barn that literally folded in on itself. This made for a good image with the cloudy sky and such. Next to the barn was a small out building. There were no locks on the door and I entered and discovered an amazing sight. Here in this barn that literally hasn’t been touched for maybe 60 years, was an old truck and a ton of other things. There was a shelf of Popular Mechanics magazines dated 1947. What a cool place. I am not big on trespassing and if I can I always seek permission to shoot on someone elses property. There were no signs or even a hint to who owns this place. So, I set up and spent some time shooting being careful not to disturb anything. This is one of those shots. Made with a P65+ with 30 second exposures. I made a number of exposures and combined them then converted to B&W. I may post a color image soon as well as one or two more from this great little place that I discovered.
Busy day on Thursday scouting out shooting locations, booking restaurants, timing things etc.. So, I spent a lot of time driving looking for shots for the workshop in the Palouse this August. The back roads here in the Palouse are incredible. They meander through beautiful rolling hills and I am tempted to stop the car at every curve. There are abandoned houses and farms and sometimes kind of apocalyptic. One of the towns I drove through was Endicott and it was very strange. The town looks like a set from the Twilight Zone. Old buildings, even an old phone booth that hasn’t been used for years. Pictures of these will be posted in the near future. The shot above was from one of the businesses in the downtown area, if you could call it that. This shot grabbed me and works great with the cross walk and old building. I am not even sure if the bank is still operational but the bent blinds in the window and starkness of it all got my attention and I hope yours.
This image was shot with the iPhone, kind of my Polaroid these days. I played around with the image in some of my apps but came back to the original each time. It just works.
I haven’t been as good as I would like in updating the blog. I have been criss crossing the country and spending a lot of time in airplanes and hotels with lousy internet connections. Until Sunday I am in the Palouse. The Palouse is a beautiful area in South eastern Washington state. Rolling hills of wheat. Hard to describe but if you visited you would see the beauty. I am doing a workshop with 30 people here in August and I am driving routes, visiting restaurants, arranging airplanes for aerial work etc.. You can learn more about this workshop by clicking here. This is a shot of a stand of trees in the Palouse. I’ll put another Palouse image up tomorrow.
On our last day in Moab we detoured and visited a new area. While working our way up to an overlook we passed an area of fields where there was a forest fire a few years back. This shot looking up the hill caught my eye. what do you think? Taken with the Phase One P65 and 110mm lens.
