Palouse Friday: wheel fence, silos, trees, top of the world, steptoe
Friday came with a 7:00 AM caravan start time. Got ready on time and we headed out to find a red barn in Uniontown. Seems like it should be easy to find. We had passed it before on our way to something else. This time we got parked just off the road and started shooting from the roadside. The red barn dominated the scenery, standing tall over the wheat field. The large sign on the front proudly proclaimed this to be Palouse Country. We moved up the tractor path to get pictures from the side of the barn and some shots of the wheat up close. You can take lots of pictures of a red barn when you don’t have to pay for the film.
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Another barn awaited us further down the road - the Dahman Barn. This one was white and housed crafts for sale by local artists. The outside is fenced in by a wheel fence. Over a thousand old, rusty iron wheels are mounted (maybe welded) together to form a fence around the front and side area. It it a long fence and shoulder high. Known brilliantly as the wheel fence it is something CJ and I have had very little luck successfully photographing. At least, we are never real happy with our photos afterwards. So we asked our leader, Rad Drew for advice. He suggested using a very fast lens to keep the depth of focus very shallow. Good idea but we don’t have fast lenses. We just tried like last time. Later we went in to browse the craft items and bought a baby holder (as a gift), a table runner, and an embroidered denim shirt.
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Next up was just across the street at the Uniontown Co-Op Association for silos and grain elevators. John Barclay, our workshop co-leader, had secured permission for us to take pictures. We were just to stay out of the way of the workers and moving equipment. The silos tower over you as you approach and present their own challenges to photograph. John guided us into an area between 4 silos where two to three people could stand at one time. We took turns and then wandered on our own afterwards.
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After finishing up at the silos we had some options. Rad Drew would hold an optional learning lesson for an hour (12-1 pm) back at the hotel. Then we would assemble again at 2 pm for another full afternoon and evening of shooting. Lunch and rest appealed to some of us and we found a restaurant back near the hotel. Back in the room it was finally time to back up all the photos we had been taking. That took most of the rest hour from 1-2 pm before the caravan of cars headed back out to Green Hollow for a lone tree. I have been thinking about getting a picture of a lone tree for several years. A photography friend, teacher, and mentor, Carol Leigh, suggested it as an assignment. A lone tree is not something I have come across often and even then the trees have not been appealing. So I was looking forward to seeing the lone tree.
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If one tree is good, are three trees better? Maybe. Our next stopping spot offered 3 trees on rolling hills with the clouds providing shadows. The shadows move across the landscape changing the appearance and altering the feeling. I like it best when the trees were in sunlight and the ground behind them in shadow.
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I asked John about getting more cloud pictures. The stacked clouds of the day looked beautiful as we drove to each new location. Before stopping we would dip down below the hill tops and the much of the stacked clouds would be obscured. John thought of a great place to get overviews that included clouds. Brose Road offered the "Top of the World" view.
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Dinner was at a wonderful restaurant called El Sol Mexican. John had arranged for them to feed us quickly so we could get back on the road in time for sunset at Steptoe Butte.
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As the light started to lessen nearing sunset time, several of us decided to skip sunset and go back to the hotel. Once down off the butte we stopped for one more cloud picture as the light had changed. Then it was off to get some much needed sleep.
