This is a continuation of hiking and exploration in Valley of Fire State Park and nearby areas, Nevada. All of the photos in this post were shot with an iPhone 14 and converted to monochrome.
This “Dark Shelter” is not in Valley of fire. This is along a 4 wheel drive road outside the park.
More from the Nevada desert later,
Ken
One morning before going out for the day, I walked just less than a mile down the country roadway that went past our cabin. I knew there was an old barn in the neighborhood that I had passed by many times and never taken time to photograph.
After conversion to black and white, I use selective colorization to bring out a little of the fall color in the nearby trees and a little color on the barn.
We had friends with us for the first week of this fall visit to Indiana. I wanted to show them at least one covered bridge, since they had never seen one. They did not want to spend hours in a vehicle to get to an area with lots of covered bridges, but there was one small covered bridge just a few minutes away, one that I had seen on a previous visit to this area.
This bridge is located along a narrow country roadway, where there is limited space to pull over and turn around. Our friends were driving today. I routed them to the bridge along the best part of the access roadway, but turning around to get back out was a challenge for their minivan. Continuing without turning around would have presented other problems, if another vehicle came along going in the opposite direction.
More Indiana Fall later,
Ken
Visits to Indiana with my wife always require visits to local, and sometimes not so local, antique stores. To occupy my time I look for interesting photo subjects for my camera phone.
I used such equipment as this waveform generator in a physics lab.
To be continued,
Ken
Nashville, Indiana is the nearest town to the cabin we stay in while visiting Indiana in the fall. It is a quaint tourist town with all that such towns offer – lots of tourist, crowds, expensive stores selling all kinds of goods, expensive restaurants, limited parking.
I am not a fan of such places, but it is always mandatory to take in some of this tourist town on each visit. I usually end up pacing the sidewalk, while my wife shops.
Sometimes I shoot a few photographs of the local scene with my iPhone camera.
Decorative grass and flowers are common along the streets of downtown Nashville. The sunlight highlighting the plumes on this one inspired me to shoot it, cropping in close to exclude the street scene.
Nashville is most popular in the fall with the nearby Brown County State Park a draw for leaf peepers. Artwork and crafts related to fall are common place.
This is a small portion of an alleyway wall mural.
That’s it for today,
Ken
Continued from Part 6:
That’s it for the old autos.
Ken
I do not recall seeing, or even being aware of, a Frazer automobile prior to finding several in a parking lot at an antique/junk place in Edinburg, Indiana. The one in the photo above is in rather good condition for its age.
I included Sunburst Master in the title of the photograph, because of the many (more than 20) sunburst reflections in the chrome.
There were lots of unsightly distractions around the automobiles here, so I did my best to exclude those in my images, which greatly restricted how I could photograph the vehicles.
Those wanting to learn more about these antique autos can learn about them at these (and other websites via online search): Frazer, DeSoto, Rover 75, Ford PU Truck, Packard.To be continued,
Ken
Traveling an Indiana backroad I saw a group of old, rustic farm structures in various stages of structural failure. The roadway was narrow. Parking alongside the roadway and photographing from the roadway would not be satisfactory nor very safe. There was only one house nearby, so I stopped and knocked on the door. A lady with her hair in curlers opened the door and I briefly explained why I was there, asking if it would be ok for me to photography those old structures. She quickly said she was sure it would be ok, although, I’m rather sure she was not the owner, but maybe others have asked her this same question.
There was a short grassy, dirt road at the old buildings. I parked on that dirt road, just off of the pavement far enough for safety and proceeded to walk around the area photographing the buildings from various angles.
A rolling stone may gather no moss, but a stationary wheel can gather grass.
I lived in a house with this same number many years ago.
After photographing the rustic farm building, I continued to meander around the backroads looking for other fall photographic opportunities. This final photo is a teaser for the next post.
Ken
When traveling from one destination to another, I always keep an eye out for interesting subjects to photograph. Taking time to stop and photograph in route helps to break up a trip and it is good to take breaks from sitting in a vehicle for hours at a time. So if I can afford the time, I will stop as often as necessary to capture images along my route.
There are many abandoned homes throughout rural areas. Often these can be photographed from a public roadway. These abandoned places are always on private property and nearly always posted with “No Trespassing” signs. Please respect others’ property and obey these postings or get permission for access.
When shooting such scenes during a road trip, one can’t be too choosy about the time of day or the lighting conditions. It is best to get a shot, when the opportunity arrises, as one may never pass this way again. Indeed, on this trip and others, I’ve often used the excuse of being in a hurry or worrying too much about shooting conditions and passed up opportunities. I nearly always regret those decisions.
More road trip shooting next,
Ken
This is a continuation of my sunrise shoot on day 5 of my time in Badlands National Park, South Dakota, September 2022.
As I was about to wrap up my morning shoot, I decided to experiment with compositional variations using the wide area of grass in the area where I had been shooting as a foreground with Badlands features in the background.
I changed my distance from the Badlands and modified the zoom to include more or less of the background and more or less of the foreground.
I like all of the images that I shot in this manner,
however, I think this final image, shot by going down a slope and shooting up at the background feature is the most dramatic. This gives the impression of a vast sea of grass with the Badlands emerging from the grassland.
Until next time,
Ken
The first day’s drive towards home was long and I had taken considerable time in the morning, stopping to shoot images in route between Hotchkiss and Gunnison. I could not spare much more time for in route photo stops, but I knew there were a number of abandoned structures along the remaining route that I might want to stop to photograph, if conditions were suitable.
I’ve driven past this abandoned country church many times. I always wanted to photograph it, but usually it was mid-day, with harsh light and clear sky, when I was passing by. It was maybe mid-afternoon when I spotted it today, the light was not great, but at least there were big, fluffy clouds to add interest in the sky. I decided today was maybe the best conditions that I would ever have to photograph here.
There is another small town in New Mexico with numerous abandoned structures, where I have stopped a couple of times to photograph, usually under harsh mid-day light. Today it was late day, just before sunset, when I was in that neighborhood, so I had to stop to see what I could do with more favorable light.
I think these are the best photos of these abandoned schools that I have gotten to date. It was just a matter of fortunate timing to be here as the sun was setting.
A few miles down the road, we noted a full, golden moon on the horizon. If I had only hung around that small town, I might have had opportunities to get photos of those old abandoned structures with the golden moon in the shots. We still had a few miles to our night’s lodging and in our haste to get there, I had again blown a good photographic opportunity, one that I will probably never have again.
Until next time,
Ken
