digitalmontanablog

Walla Walla

DL Dorr — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:31:15 +0000

The next leg of my great adventure took me from the wheat country of eastern Washington, south through the Palouse region. The Palouse area can only be understood by being there; preferably by standing atop Steptoe Butte and walking around it’s narrow cone-shaped apex. The vista is truely incredible. On this trip the sky was so filled with smoke from fires burning in Canada that I didn’t stay long…and it was HOT! When I arrived at my destination, Walla Walla, the lady at the front desk of the motel said it had been 115 degrees that day! Thank God for air conditioning. My poor dog, Yojii, was in desperate need of a huge slurp of water.
I like Walla Walla. The more time I spend in Walla Walla, the more I like it. It’s neat, clean and seems like it’s prosperous. Home to Whitman College, a small liberal arts college, it has a vibrant downtown that’s lined with sidewalk bistros and handsome shops that have the new-old look. One of my major goals in staying the night in Walla Walla was to try and contact an old acquaintance of mine from when I was a life-guard in Porcupine Bay, a campground which is part of Coulee Dam National Recreation Area, back in 1968. Over forty years ago! Dave Cosby and I spent one entire summer rooming together in a surplus government shack and shared duties as lifeguards at the campground swimming area. I didn’t make a lot of money that summer, but I have memories that more than make up for it. Dave and I met in his store, chatted a while (I think he was in shock seeing a face out of his past…four decades in the past) then left.
Next stop Boise for a pin-up shoot.

Wheat Country: Day One

DL Dorr — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:16:54 +0000

When Ann and I returned from our June trip to Idaho, Washington, and Oregon we drove from our last stop in Tacoma to Spokane, most of it on US Highway 2. To get there we took a jog off Interstate 90 near Ellensburg and drove north to Leavenworth, WA, just to say we’d been there. It was HOT, and the town was crowded with the usual tourists, despite the dire news on the state of the economy. It was a quick stop because of the heat and the crush of bodies on the narrow steets of this quaint Bavarian-styled village.

When we left we drove east and picked up US 2 outside of Wenatchee, WA…the heart of Washington Apple country, and followed the mighty Columbia north for a short distance. Once out of the Columbia River canyon the landscape becomes an endless ocean of wheat. Miles upon miles of golden grain stretching to the eastern border of the state. At that point, highway 2 is little more than a two laned road…and old one at that…dotted by small farm communities, country roads and old barns. It was here I made myself the promise: to return and photograph the wheat country of Washington and it’s disappearing barns, farm buildings and machinery.

On August 18th we left for Spokane where Ann would catch a ride with her brother back to Oregon to visit with her mother one more time before the summer ended. I would stay at Bob’s apartment and make it my base for my day trips into the wheat country that surrounded Highway 2. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the wheat harvest was just starting because of some late rains which had raised the moisture content above the requisite 11 percent for elevator storage. My first day took me past the small town of Reardan, WA to the Sunset Highway west of town. The Sunset Highway was the precursor to Highway 2 and the main east-west route from 1937 to 1964. The Sunset Highway today easily fits my description of a ’slow road’. A place where you can pull over, get out and take a picture without fear. A place with the charm and serenity of a time long past from our national consciousness.

From this road you will pass by places like Mondavi which consists of three houses and a system of grain elevators located near the railroad tracks (and doesn’t even show up in a Google search).

Near Mondavi are some old buildings that I wanted to photograph for this project that I had photographed earlier when we visited in June. This time I ‘bushwacked’ to my vantage point.

For me, there is something about carrying a camera that makes me fearless when approaching strangers.

“Even without taking pictures, carrying a camera enhances life. It provides you with an excuse to pause, to look, to inquire, to talk, and to take notice…It allows us to take notes, scribble observations, and deepen what we know and what we will later remember. While it seems like carrying a camera causes the whole world to transform before our eyes, something deeper is taking place. The change isn’t occurring in the world, it’s happening inside of you.” Chris Orwig, Visual Poetry

As I bushwacked to these isolated spots I passed two combines and trucks getting started for the morning. I stopped on the side of the dusty country road and walked over to the nearest truck and asked if I could photograph their harvesting operation. The man in the truck was very friendly…as I’ve found most people in rural America to be. Steve, called the boss on his two-way radio to ask for permission and stuggled to explain what I was doing, but eventually the boss told him that it was okay…but we’d need to talk about ‘royalties’ later. He and his son were the combine drivers. They would drive around the huge field of wheat and when their storage bins were full of grain they would radio the grain trucks. The big trucks would amble across the dusty field ruts and rock back and forth like a pendulum, pull alongside the combine and the driver would stop, pull levers, flip switches, and press buttons and wheat would start spewing out of the long spout that reached from here to there. Soon, thirty TONS of wheat filled the truck bed.

Steve, the driver told me that it would be a mediocre harvest…no bumper crop…this year. Two years ago was huge, he said.

Once the truck was full we ’sped’ over to the Mondovi elevator to get weighed and then dumped our load. Workman everywhere will always have their eyes on the lookout for cute members of the opposite sex, this was no different. Guys are like that.

When we returned to the field there was some excitement going on. The bossman had scared a Whitetail doe out of the field he was cutting and was informing his son via two-way radio to be on the lookout for a fawn hunkered down in the field so he could avoid running over it with his blades.

The remainder of the day was not quite as melodramatic, but the pictures were just as interesting. I wondered about the dreams people had when they started their farms, built their houses, and what they felt when they left those dreams behind. If only the remains of those dreams could talk…what would they say?

Blessings,

At the Zoo

DL Dorr — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:51:14 +0000

One of the must-do’s in Boise is a trip to the zoo; located in the Julia Davis park near downtown. Our summer visit to Boise took us to the zoo early to avoid the heat and to see my favorites, the Siberian tigers. Since their enclosure is located near the back of the compound we strolled through the birds:

Giraffes:

Since our last visit they’ve added a lion exhibit:

However, with all the exotic animals for us to experience, the most exciting one was Calvin the Badger (at least for my wife…but I have to admit it was pretty cool too). Calvin was on a stroll with the handlers and loves people…so they were having a problem getting Calvin back to her (yes, it’s a HER…but that’s another story) home. She wanted to visit EVERYBODY! One thing you do NOT want to do to a Badger is make it angry, so the handlers were gently coaxing her back to her place:

Another interesting animal is the Komodo Dragon:

Beautiful animals when you can take the time to actually look at them and not have to RUN from them.

Our final stop before the heat became too oppressive…the Siberian pair:

Blessings,

Idaho Falls

DL Dorr — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:46:54 +0000

At 486 feet above the waters of the Snake River, the Perrine Bridge is the highest bridge in the state of Idaho and the only man-made structure in the US where Base jumping is allowed year-round without a permit. The jumpers often refer to it as Potato Bridge.

The heat was oppressive and nearly 100 degrees! Fortunately, Twin Falls has an abundance of cool water to ease the stifling blast of summer:

Notice the kayaks in the water. This was taken from the deck of the Perrine Bridge in Idaho

Cooling off in the mist of a waterfall.

The Twin Falls of the Snake River

Blue Lakes Country Club

Stanley to Boise

DL Dorr — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:30:52 +0000

Before leaving StanleyI slipped out of the room in the wee hours of the morning, shortly after O’dark-thirty, and drove back to the same spot I’d shot the stormy skies over the Sawtooth. Early morning smells, to me, are normally heightened by the fresh air and higher relative humidity, however the skies had cleared and the rain from the previous evening had made the sagebrush smells more intense than the reed diffusers I use in my home. And the views? Incredible!

After checking out of the motel we went back to the same restaurant we’d dined at the previous evening, called ‘The Stanley Baking Company’ located at 14 Wall Street. I highly recommend it for it’s rustic / outdoorsy atmospher AND the amazing food! The waitstaff are friendly and the patrons are equally so and easy to speak with. The natural surroundings seem to allay any stress or anger a person may be carrying around. It is as if the splendor had spoken to the soul as much as the their sight. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture a ‘family’ portrait at our newly appointed favorite spot in the world, so we returned to the same vantage point and posed:

The road we traveled took us south and at the edge of town is the road to Redfish Lake, a beautiful high mountain body of water. As we crossed the stream outlet I pulled over and hiked down to the rushing whitewater and found a pair of American Water Dippers (also known as a Water Ouzel) doing their mating thing.

These birds actually walk on the bottom of fast moving streams to feed!

Once out of the Sawtooth National Forest the scenery changed tremendously and the skies around us gave signs of impending storms. The clouds, however were an awesome sight to behold:

Bitterroot to Bayhorse

DL Dorr — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:15:58 +0000

On July 2nd, Ann and I left Kalispell at our usual time…O’dark-thirty…for the Idaho leg of our summer travels, to visit Justin (our youngest) in Boise, Idaho. Our last trip took us across the narrow panhandle of Idaho, this time we would drive through the center of the state, taking all the slow roads we could find….and we found a lot of them. Our first slow road actually started in Montana south of Darby. Darby holds many memories of when I was young (six decades ago) of fishing small creeks, evenings swimming at “The Plunge” hotsprings, bringing the cows back with the aid of Uncle Kenney’s dogs, and the “Trapper Peaks” near his house:

I don’t know if it’s common to gain an interest in history as one grows older, but Ann and I have both found a fascination with local histories. Three years ago, after selling our business we did extensive travel (at least for us it was extensive) and were able to take backroads and found many interesting historical places to visit on our way:

Savenac Historic Tree Nursery,

Cataldo Mission, Bannack, MT (ghost town),

Wallace, Idaho (historic bordello museum)

and not least Butte, MT (historic mining city).

The road we chose took us over Lost Trail Pass, which is historic in its own right from mining to Lewis and Clark. Our first area of interest was a ghost town called Gibbonsville, an old silver mining city in the narrow canyons of the Salmon River drainage north of the town called (of course) Salmon, Idaho. The was the first of our many ‘bushwacking’ tours on dirt single-track roads and we loved every minute of it. We never did find the actual site of Gibbonsville, but we had a nice lunch near a burbling creek in the sun and let the dog run unfettered through the brush. Actual evidence of the mining activity was horrendous…huge tailing piles were unmistakeable in the narrow confines of this small valley and even after all these years it was still an ugly gash on the face of the lush mountain landscape. UGLY.

From Salmon, Idaho there are two highways which eventually get us where we wanted to go, Highway 28 (a state highway) goes through a breathtaking high desert plateau that we had traveled once before. It’s elevation is nearly 7000 feet and the road is lonesome. This is the highway where I actually laid on the asphalt and shot pictures of the mountains in the distance….not a car in sight and it was that way for most of the time we were parked on the roadside. As I said…high and lonely.

Highway 93, the other route, is the route we chose. It follows the Salmon River, to its headwaters in the Lost River Range, to Challis, Idaho and on to the recreational mecca of Stanley, Idaho (Population 100 according to the 2000 census). However, before we drove to Stanley, we bushwacked to another historic ghost town called Bayhorse, Idaho, which is a brand new state park in the Idaho park system. It was a very nice visit, despite the rain storm we had to wait out during our time there. The state has done an excellent job of developing this historic site, with rails and trails, informational signs and RESTROOMS! Heh. The terrain was rugged and beautiful. One other tidbit about this area (and state) is that it is a SERIOUS area for four-wheelers (ATV’s)! Bayhorse, Idaho:

The Wells Fargo Building

Bayhorse Mine

Remains of Charcoal Kilns

We arrived at Stanley, Idaho and promptly grabbed a motel room as it is a BUSY place in the summer. As we found out later, Stanley has activities for all seasons…this according to their city maintenance supervisor, James Denhart, a Stanley resident. After settling in at the motel we scoped the town for eateries and were pleased to find a great place off the main drag (on Wall Street, believe it or not) called simply enough, The Bakery. The name shouldn’t fool you…they had gourmet dinners AND great baked goods, AND outdoor dining. I highly recommend it.

Stanley is situated at the base of some of the most beautiful mountain peaks in existence today…the Sawtooth Mountains, often called the ‘American Alps’. Stanley is the only place in the US where THREE national scenic byways intersect. An incomplete list of Stanley’s activities:

Rafting Experience the 1-Day family-style river trips on the Salmon River Stanley is the jumping off point for Idaho’s Famous Middle Fork and Salmon River of No Return.

Climbing World Class Climbing in the Sawtooth Mountains

Hiking Trails to over 400 high mountain lakes in the Sawtooth Mountains

Mountain Biking Everything from smooth single track loops to technical trails. So many options it can be confusing. Pick up a map or hire a guide to find the best trails in the area

Fly Fishing The Salmon River and upper Middle Fork

Trailrides Great trailrides through the Sawtooth Mountains

Snowmobiling

Cross-country skiing

and last but not least, Hunting

James Denhart, the maintenance supervisor for Stanley, told us that the town has activities for all four seasons but warned us that the winters get pretty chilly at times…like down to -50 degrees at times. So cold that it snaps power poles, as they found out a couple winters ago. They were without power for two days, but the town pulled together and found shelter for everyone. That’s the nice thing about small towns

Does this give you any idea how beautiful this place is?

After dining and taking pictures of the stormy skyline we headed back to our room and listened to the motorcycle people clomping around until the wee hours of the morning…which wasn’t so bad because it made it easier for me to be noisy at O’dark-thirty when we left the next morning….heh.

Highway 2 and the Palouse

DL Dorr — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:27:41 +0000

Ann finished her testing for Montessori certification on Friday and we left for Oregon on Monday. As usual we took the ’slow road’ so we could stop and smell the roses and I could take pictures of the roses. We drove west of Kalispell on Highway 2, which may not sound like a ’slow road’, but believe me….it’s slow.

The weather was crappy! Rain, and wind and gray skies! We didn’t get out to smell the flowers until we were in Idaho at the Moyie Springs bridge…the second tallest bridge in Idaho.

We stopped in the bustling tourist town of Sandpoint, ID for a break and to eat lunch. Now, along with the ’slow road’ principle, we’ve recently adopted another technique and that is one of eating at local, rather than brand-name, food places…call them ‘Mom and Pop’ places or local favorites. They usually have much more interesting food and waitstaff and customers. At one of the shops we asked for such a place from the owner and headed that direction, weaving our way in and out of cute little shops, but not buying much of anything. To get to our place we had to walk clear to the other end of main street, but it was a neat little bistro. I had the ‘organic’ chicken tostada, which was good but had an interesting spice that I couldn’t identify. I don’t recall what Ann had.

We left Sandpoint after lunch and walking Yojii. About 30 miles outside of Sandpoint we were stopped in a line of cars, which extended in both directions, that were blocked by a serious accident between a small car and a belly-dump sort of semi-truck. The car lost. The engine was ripped out of the car and tossed into the bushes by the side of the road, but no one died! An incredible miracle in my mind.

Finally the rain started to clear, just about the time we arrived in Spokane.

The next day we drove to a wildlife refuge and were, for the most part, disappointed by it’s lack of wildlife. So we drove north to an area I was familiar with from my college days: Davenport, WA and Porcupine Bay NRA. A flood of memories filled my head as we drove. The summer after my first year of college I took a job as a lifeguard at Porcupine Bay, a part of the Coulee Dam National Recreation Area and shared a ’surplus’ military style trailer with another guy named Dave Crosby or Cosby, from the dinky little town called Wilbur, Washington. Next to us lived the campground maintenance man, Joe Riddlington, from Coulee Dam…his dad was the MAYOR of Coulee Dam (I don’t know why, but that impressed the heck outta me…heh). The summer was filled with sun, girls, and water!

Porcupine Bay is nineteen miles north of Davenport, which is the heart of wheat growing country in Washington. It’s claim to fame: only one county produces more wheat than Lincoln county, of which Davenport is the county seat. It’s rolling hills are covered by MILES of wheat fields….and OLD BARNS.

So, once we left Porcupine Bay, we drove the backroads of Lincoln County looking for photography opportunities. I found that they are abundant.

The following day took us south of Spokane and into the Palouse Region of south-east Washington. The Palouse is a rich agricultural area of gentle rolling hills and green fields that have been the subject of many photographers. I’d only been through this area once before…three years ago…but it still held me in fascination and awe. One of the best ways to see the Palouse is from Steptoe Butte, which rises above the surrounding countryside, and is home to dozens of electronic antennae (which are just not that photogenic!).

Steptoe Butte

The Palouse Region of Washington (taken from Steptoe Butte)

A site we’d had to by-pass three years prior was Palouse Falls. The interesting thing about Palouse Falls is that it isn’t near anything….nothing. It’s in the middle of nothing but sagebrush and more sagebrush…you HAVE to be going to Palouse Falls to get there. Recently a crazy man paddled a kayak over the falls to break the world record descent in a kayak…184 feet! What makes people do that sort of thing???

We ate lunch at the falls in the shady picnic area they had there. Did I tell you that we were in the middle of nothing? It was hot too! Our trails in Glacier Park have warning signs that tell hikers the hazards of hiking that trail: Ursus Horribilus…aka Grizzly Bear. At Palouse Falls they had signs, near the toilets, telling of the RATTLESNAKE hazard! It said they FREQUENT the area! We didn’t stay long at Palouse Falls.

Near Walla Walla, well actually surrounding it, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of wind turbines. They line the canyon walls of the Snake and Columbia River gorges. As we neared Walla Walla, we found some interesting imagery of mustard fields and wind turbines and drove a road that we probably weren’t authorized to be on…but didn’t see the NO TRESPASSING sign until we were leaving the gated road…heh…plausible deniability works for more than politicians.

Once we were beyond Walla Walla, we joined with I-84 and were swept by the hordes of tourists into Portland and our idyllic day of meandering was at an end but made myself a promise to return and do a ’study’ of the area and its old buildings and empty fields after the harvest.

Blessings,

Keiko: Barn Dance

DL Dorr — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:08:58 +0000

Session four took place the day after shooting the “Water Ballet” session and took place at my favorite barn studio near Somers. Keiko had suggested doing a barn theme and I had been thinking the same thing for several days before she mentioned it. We met in the morning to catch the easterly sun sprinkling its light through the holes in the barn roof.

(click for larger image)

Keiko: Water Ballet

DL Dorr — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:50:26 +0000

Session three and four was with Keiko S. another exquisite ballerina who dances for Marisa at Northwest School of Ballet. In “A Night of Classics”, their spring recital I saw Keiko dance a selection from “Don Quixote” in a red tutu that was absolutely stunning! Here is one of those images to show you what I mean:

Several of Marisa’s dancers answered my call for models and Keiko was one of them. She shared with me her vision of the Ballerina project and I checked it out. One idea was a barn on her property but I told her I had a better barn, but her water park selection was amazing! We spent an evening together capturing images all around the park and even in the water! Here are some of her images:

Thanks, Keiko!

Meredith: On The Rocks

DL Dorr — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:34:05 +0000

My second Ballet shoot took place at a state park near where I live. My model Meredith and her mother met me there on a warm spring evening just before sunset. The place I remembered from a previous session I couldn’t find and plus we had other people to contend with that I didn’t want to be in the background. We chose a spot above Flathead Lake and made it a part of the composition. For those not familiar with Flathead Lake, it has the distinction of being the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. The spot we chose was awesome and Meredith was too!