Light, Shadow, Form, and Texture

Another beautiful day and I spent it exploring the area north and east of Rugby where I revisited a couple of the locations from the May workshop and explored some of the back roads looking for photo opportunities.

Today I found some interesting things by the road that I thought I would share. Not so much art, but I got a chuckle out of them.

These roads get probably less than one vehicle per hour. It made me wonder about the 'Yield' signs.

An interesting mount for the mailbox.

And finally, nothing like a smiley face to cheer you up, and I would have loved to have some M&Ms at that point!

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

Finally, after two days of rain and dull cloudy weather, the sun reappeared.

I made a tour of a wide area south of Rugby. I drove about 250 miles and nearly got stuck on a muddy road a couple of miles off the highway. Fortunately I figured out just in time that the road was not as solid as it looked.

Tomorrow will be the last full day I have before I must start working my way back home so I hope the weather holds.

Here are a couple of shots from today’s outing:

A Place by the Lake

Just in case you didn't notice, this is not a road ...

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

Weather radar showed a large area of rain south of Rugby and moving north. So I took off north to see how well I could outrun the rain. I got in about 4 hours or so of exploring and photographing before it caught up with me. Half a day is better than being rained out all day.

Here are two of the images from today:

One of the reasons why so many of these small villages have lost most of their populations.

'Go Titans'

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

Today I was rained out.

I got off to a slow start this morning but when I saw the weather I did not worry about it.

After breakfast I took off for Minot, ND to the Lillian and Coleman Taube Museum of Art to view a beautiful photography exhibit. Three prints each from 17 nationally and internationally known photographers. Included are two photographers from whom I had taken workshops, Tillman Crane and Bruce Barnbaum. Also included is Dan Smith, who lives in Rolette, ND and who assisted with the ‘Abandoned Farms’ workshop last spring and who has provided me with some valuable tips for my activities on this trip. The exhibited work is all black and white and includes a number of exotic printing techniques. Whatever the technology, however, all of the images were stunning.

After seeing the exhibit, I decided to kill some time in the hopes that the rain would subside so I could try to get some shooting in on my way back to Rugby. At Dan’s suggestion, I went to the China Star restaurant in Minot where they have an amazing buffet. I stuffed myself well and when I got the bill I almost fell out of my chair. The huge meal cost only a little over $8.00, including tax! What a deal!

After slogging through the rain back to the hotel, I decided that this is a good point to take more detailed look through my images so far to see what I have and develop some thoughts about what I should be doing for the rest of the trip.

In process, I did a quick and dirty workup of a few of the images in Lightroom. Here are a couple of them where I used a 5×12 aspect ratio crop.

Many of the small villages I visited still have small populations that provide services to the local farmers. Here, on Sunday morning, it seemed like almost the whole town had gathered at the local grocery store and cafe.

The old abandoned house still stand guard on a farmers line of grain bins.

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

Today (Tuesday) started out cold, windy and dark with a heavy overcast and light drizzle.

Little by little, however, the drizzle stopped and the clouds lifted. By late morning the light had brightened considerably and although the sky was still overcast, the clouds developed good texture. Through the afternoon, the clouds started to break up and provided some very nice intermittent sunlight.

The paint has seen better days, but the color is still strong.

The front entrance was completely blocked by the foliage at the front of the house.

This lovely church was started in 1887 but closed in 2001.

Except for the grain elevators, this is the largest structure I've found in this area.

There. I’m caught up.

30 percent chance of rain showers tomorrow. My luck makes it 100 percent, but would not be the first time I’ve been out in the rain in North Dakota.

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

I’m doing a quick update for days 3 and 4 tonight.

On Monday I transferred from Langdon to Rugby, with stops along the way to photograph.Unfortunately, by 11:00 a steady drizzle had developed so I only stopped a couple of times.

A cool couple hanging out on the front porch.

This barn was visible from a long way down the road. I couldn't resist, even though it was still raining.

I got to the hotel in Rugby and got settled into the room and caught up on a few phone calls since I had been almost completely out of cellular coverage for most of the weekend. My room is an inside room that opens to the pool (this is not an advantage!) but has no windows. When I went out for an early dinner, the drizzle had gone away and the clouds had broken up into a beautiful sunny afternoon with blue sky and puffy white clouds. Since I was hungry, I caught a quick hamburger and then grabbed my camera and headed out looking for the ultimate North Dakota Sunset.

Shooting directly at the sun was not working, but the lesson here is that if there is a beautiful low warm sunset, point the camera away from the sun.

Just before sunset, the sun peeked through the clouds to illuminate these hay bales.

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

It was cloudy today, but that’s not altogether bad. The light is softer and through the day the clouds dispersed for a time. I returned to the places I went yesterday to get some of the subjects with morning light. Some of it worked out to simply be cloudy, but either way, I was able to get better results on a number of things.

In the afternoon, I visited several new places and by the end of the day I had hit all of the towns on my list plus some extras.

Here are a couple of shots:

Like two eyes peeking out through the bushes.

Standing tall on the prairie.

I spent a lot of time wandering around the secondary unpaved roads. They run mostly dead straight and every intersection looks the same, and there are rarely signs to identify the roads.

Makes me wonder what it takes to close the road. I saw worse than this that were open!

The intersection of 97th Street NE and 97th Avenue NE. (Really!) Here's where a GPS and a good map are essential.

The GPS was very helpful, but here it wanted me to turn down this road. Nah ... Did I say you should have a good map in addition to the GPS?

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography

After three days of driving, I arrived in Langdon, ND last night and absolutely crashed after dinner. I didn’t even try to read. Lights out at 8:30.

I woke up just before the sun rose into a beautiful crystal clear blue sky and when I got out to the car I found frost on the window! I had to dig into the back to find the scraper. Sure glad I remembered to bring it.

I drove about 230 miles around the area and visited a number of places. I found a number of abandoned places plus a few surprises.

Overall it was a productive day.

Today the Internet connection in the hotel came back after being out last night so just to prove I’m not goofing off, here are a few sample images.

Just south of Langdon there is a huge wind farm.

One of the many abandoned houses I found in the small towns around Langdon.

Main street Nekoma, ND

This church was tucked into a cluster of trees with nothing else in the vicinity.

Everywhere I went, I saw large grain elevators, especially by the railroad tracks.

A strange thing in the middle of the prairie. I Haven't heard about any alien abductions lately, however.

Posted in North Dakota Workshop and Project, Photography