This is a continuation of road trip photography of September, 2022.
To be continued,
Ken
Road Trip Photography Between Destinations – September 2022, Part 4 – Rural Abandonment
Tag: Photography
Road Trip Photography Between Destinations – September 2022, Part 3 – Abandoned Farm Homes
This is a continuation of road trip photography of September 2022.
After shooting and driving away from this abandoned Nebraska home, I realized that I should have used a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the windmill. The windmill still spins, but the pump is disconnected.
This is apparently a popular pump gear box that is or was used with windmills. In researching this item, I found online listing for parts for this model gear box.
The evergreen tree on the left seems to be distraught about the dilapidated condition of this abandoned farm house. Maybe children once played around that tree. This image was chosen for Flickr’s Explore Page.
Even more road trip images in the next post,
Ken
Road Trip Photography, September 2022, Part 2 – Historical Bryan Bridge, Niobrara River, Nebraska
Homeward bound from the Badlands National Park of South Dakota and traveling through Nebraska, I needed a place to pull over for lunch. Seeing a sign indicating a historical bridge loop, I was too slow to react to take the first exit to that loop, but I was able to take the second exit.
I pulled over just before a bridge at a small parking lot with this historical marker.
I made a sandwich, taking it with me as I walked onto the bridge. Soon another person joined me on the bridge. He informed me that the Niobrara River had no fish in it. I found that quite surprising, as it looked like a nice, but shallow river. His theory as to why there are no fish in this river is because the river water gets too hot for fish, since it is shallow and completely open to sunlight all day. My research indicates that there are fish in this river. However, I did not see any fish in the clear, shallow water at this location. So maybe the range of the fish is limited in the Niobrara River.
The river at this location, at this time, was quite shallow and one could easily walk across it.
This bridge has been bypassed by a newer bridge nearby, but the Bryan Bridge still seems to be in good condition and is open to traffic.
The water level was too low, at this time, to float that downed tree in the middle of the river; although, the fact that the fallen tree is in the middle of the river, indicates that the river level was higher and flowing rapidly to deposit the tree there.
The newer highway and railroad bridges are just downriver from the old Bryan Bridge.
In the river near the bridge are square blocks with round holes in their centers. Were these an original part of the bridge structure or were these dumped here for another reason?
Maybe there is a reader that can answer this question.
More later,
Ken
Road Trip Photography Between Destinations – September 2022, Part 1
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
Badlands National Park, September 2022 – Final Afternoon and Sunset
On the final day of my visit to Badlands National Park, South Dakota, I drove to the Visitors’ Center, where I would usually stop early in a visit to such a place; but so far I had ignored the Visitors’ Center, perhaps because it had been so far from my base of activity in the park and it is a large park to explore.
Somewhat past the Visitors’ Center there is a parking lot and walkways that let one get a wide view of some of the Badland features.
Continuing past the Visitors’ Center there are other areas of this park that I had not yet seen on this trip. Although, I recall being in this area the first time I came here years ago. There are hiking trails, long and short, in this area. Now that my time here is ending, I’m wishing that I had come this way earlier and hiked some of these trails.
The image above was taken after hiking a short trail from a parking lot.
I had picked out a place from which to shoot at sunset today. Yet on the way to that destination, I saw the distant features that I had planned to shoot were visible from a view point. On a spur of the moment, I decided to change my plans and shoot from this viewing area. I hiked out onto some features down from the viewing area in an effort to get better vantage points.
I quickly realized that those distant features I had planned to shoot were too far away, but I did not think I had time now to revert to my original plans, so I stuck it out here and tried to make the best of shooting at this location.
The nearby feature quickly began to fall into shadow, even though the sun was still relatively high in the sky.
As I noted how the light changed and how those distant features were getting the best of the golden hour light, I realized how bad my spur of the moment decision to shoot here was. I would have been much closer to those distant features at my initially chosen location.
As the shadows began to quickly progress across the landscape, I began to retreat towards the parking lot. In that retreat, I noted that I could navigate around some of the nearby features to the east and get better views than from where I had been shooting.
The image above shows an area into which I could have hiked and gotten much better golden hour images, but it was too late now. Live and learn. If I’m here again, I will know how to get here and when to be here.
I shot this final image of the sunset sky with my iPhone as I was making my way back to the parking lot.
This wraps up my 2022 photography in Badlands National park. I will begin the multiple day journey home tomorrow morning.
Ken
Interior South Dakota
On the south side of Badlands National Park is the tiny town of Interior, South Dakota. I drove through this town a number of times during my September 2022 visit to the Badlands.
I found little of photographic interest in Interior, but there were a couple of small churches that I stopped by to photograph.
These two churches were within visual range of each other with the larger one being the first that I saw and then spotted the smaller one just down a side road from the larger one.
That’s all I have from Interior, SD.
Ken
Badlands National Park, Day 5 – Sunrise Photography Part B
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
Badlands National Park, Day 5 – Sunrise Photography Part A
I arose early on the last day I had to spend in Badlands National Park, once again driving that slow, washboarded gravel road from Interior to SD 240.
I went back to an area from which I had shot a couple of morning already, when the sky were cloudy. Today the early morning sky was mostly clear and I anticipated a good sunrise golden hour.
To be continued,
Ken
Badlands National Park, South Dakota – Day 4 Sunset
As the sun sank lower into the western sky, I walked back into the grassland area to the east of the gravel road connecting Interior, SD to SD 240 in Badlands NP. I had pulled over maybe a half mile before the intersection with SD 240 and scouted this area a little earlier.
I always try to begin shooting a little before golden hour, since one can never predict what will happen with the light and today I have a large area from which to shoot, so I want to have time to get a number of compositions and hopefully have sufficient time to move around and vary my compositions as golden hour advances.
What happened to all those big fluffy clouds that had been so prevalent in the sky as I was scouting here? They’ve all disappeared, leaving a blank, bland sky.
For the image above, I stood in the shadow of a ridge to avoid having my shadow in image.
Time to head back to my campsite,
Ken
Badlands National Park, South Dakota – Day 4 Sunset – Scouting Photos
There is a gravel road from Interior, SD that goes into the Badlands NP, connecting to SD 240. I took this road, intending to go all the way to SD 240 and shoot sunset images in the same grassland area from which I had shot earlier this morning, when the sky was completely overcast.
This gravel roadway was very washboarded over long intervals, when I drove it, requiring slow driving. As I got nearer SD 240, I began to realize that it might be better to shoot from a grassy area to the east of the gravel roadway, rather than going back to my morning location.
I had plenty of time prior to sunset, so I pulled over to scout nearby.
The big clouds are still hanging around, which bodes well for sunset shooting today.
After walking around this grassy area and shooting a few scouting images, I decided that this would definitely be a better area from which to shoot than where I had planned to go.
Stay tuned for the results of todays sunset shoot,
Ken