A Barn, A Fence, Some Trees, AND The Coolest Grain Elevator
Our last full workshop day was a busy one! We gathered at our usual 7:00 am and headed south toward Uniontown. Our first stop was a big, red barn on a hill which could have been really cool, but the sky was totally devoid of clouds. There was nothing to enhance the barn, so we finally walked up a long driveway to get a side view of the barn, and a few clouds heading towards it. I'm sure this barn has the potential to be a lot more picturesque, but it was kind of blah on this day.
Our next stop was the dreaded Wheel Fence...an illustration of my photographic failures. The fence is constructed of over a 1000 antique wagon and tractor wheels, and is found surrounding the Dahmen yard and barn. It SHOULD be a photographer's playground. However, I have tried to photograph this fence at least two other times, and all I have to show for my efforts are a bunch of very mediocre images. So, although I gave it a valiant effort once again, this fence and I are just not friends!
|
|
|
|
My spirits picked up considerably during our next stop. We crossed the road and were allowed to photograph the outside areas of the Uniontown Silos and Grain Elevators. What a cool place!!! As I understand it, the silos are for storage of grain, and the elevators are towers which contain either bucket elevators, or pneumatic conveyors to scoop up the grain from lower levels and deposit it in a silo. There were so many interesting patterns and grungy abstracts to photograph, I could have easily stayed there another hour or two. The image at the top of this blog post shows wonderful detail of nuts and bolts, and terrific shadows made by the neighboring silos. And you can tell by the number of images below that I was reveling in the subject matter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was time for our lunch break, so we headed back to Pullman. We had a learning session scheduled during lunch, but no one had access to lunch, so it became either you had lunch, or you went to the session. We opted for lunch and a little rest break.
When we all met again for the afternoon, we headed off to Green Hollow for images of a beautiful lone tree - much enhanced by the wonderful cloud shadows. Oh, and some more terrific rolling, green hills as well!
|
|
A quick ride in the car and we were now at the location for "John's Three Trees." It's a kick to watch John get so excited about things (see my blog on sunset at the Weber House). In this location, it was all about the cloud shadows. I admit to not realizing previously how important those shadows are in bringing the viewer's eye right where you want it to be. But believe me, I do know now. John's kept up a running commentary, "Here they come, get ready." "Oooh, look at the way the trees are lit up." "Oh, better wait a bit, no clouds are overhead right now." The again, "Here they come, here they come!" And, for those doing infrared photography there were many "oohs" and "ahas" about the way the scene looked as well. What a fun stop!
|
|
|
|
Rich was getting a bit frustrated because there were so so many beautiful skies with wonderful white, puffy, stacked clouds - and he wasn't getting the opportunity to stop and shoot them...so he staged a "mini-tantrum" at John requesting a puffy cloud stop. John and Rad conferred and decided to take us to a place they called "the top of the world" for some beautiful views, and hopefully some clouds for Rich. The image on the right shows Steptoe Butte from a distance, while the images at the end of this blog show views from Steptoe Butte.
|
|
Our final stop for the day was back to Steptoe Butte for sunset once again. I can't see that these images were that different than the ones we took Tuesday evening - maybe the quality of light was slightly different, I don't know. At any rate, we were there for over an hour taking pictures, and hoping for something unusual or spectacular to happen when the sun set. Finally Rich and I, along with Lori who had been riding with us, and another participant decided we'd given it our all, and headed down the hill. When we were almost at the bottom, there was a wonderful pink sky for a brief minute or two, but it took us too long to get to a decent vantage point, so we only caught a bit of it. I do love the almost-purple fallow field here.
|
|
Comments
These are so exciting. Some of the best work I've seen you do. Woof!