Tag: road

Freeway Poppies

California poppies can be found in Western Washington only along roads. I’ve spotted one of such places along one of freeways while driving my son to gymnastics. The hills was burning orange covered with poppies.

The next morning I woke up a little bit earlier to get to that hill and photograph poppies before work. I parked the car at the nearest parking lot next to a store and walked to that hill. The poppies were as good as the day before – an island of the Nature beauty in the middle of a city.

So, there I was, lying on a ground photographing poppies with cars passing by at a high speed. Here are a few photos I took:

Tulip Fatigue?

Every year there is a tulip festival in Skygit Valley. It is probably one of the best events in the northwest. It attracts a lot of people and that includes photographic crowd. I’ve photographed there many times of the years.

This year I went to photograph there too. Strangely enough I ended up with no photographs of tulips. I photographed workers picking up bunches of tulips for sale. I photographed dirt roads, fences, trees, and everything else around except tulips. Do I have tulip fatigue and don’t respond visually to fields of tulips anymore?

Workers Picking Tulips
Workers Picking Tulips

Bus at the End of the Road
Bus at the End of the Road

Big Pine

Day 3, Noon

With a spare tire that I put the day before I could not get far, since it was not regular size. I needed to fix that problem first. The closest town – Big Pine – was over an hour away, especially with spare tire with a limit of 50 mph.

The drive to Big Pine turned out pretty interesting and picturesque. From there I decided to drive along Sierra Nevada mountain range south and re-enter Death Valley from west. That way I would have entered the valley from every road available.

The road was very nice. If I were to go to Eureka Dunes again that’s probably the way I would approach it. And for convenience I could even stay in Big Pine for a night.

The drive to Big Pine and then driving west of Death Valley turned out very picturesque. Here is a road from Eureka Dunes with snowy Sierra Nevada in the distance:

Road from Eureka Dunes

Here is a nice roller-coaster ride to the west entrance to Death Valley with mountains in the distance hidden behind dust storm:

Roller Coaster

And here are the curves of road descending into Death Valley with its colorful mountains (click on the image to see it larger):

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Big Pine Road

Day 2, Afternoon

My next destination in Death Valley was Eureka Dunes. Eureka Dunes are remote but are worth the drive. Their size is magnificent and awe inspiring.

The way I got there was by Big Pine Road coming from Scottys Castle. It was about 2 hour drive on a rough unpaved road. The views were great and I stopped several times to take photos. The very first post of the series about this trip (Death Valley) has one of the views opening up for traveller.

There are a couple of interesting sites a long the way. First one is Crankshaft Crossing that actually have a few crankshafts lying around:

Crankshaft Crossing

And the other one is remains of a sulfur mine that was abandoned long time ago. With much of equipment abandoned to rust it looks like a scar on a landscape. One sheet of metal was loose and flapping in the wind making a squeaky sound. This made the place feel ghostly and spooky.

Mine 1

Mine 2

Mine 3

Death Valley

Day 1, Afternoon

This is a beginning of a story about my photographic trip to Death Valley. One of the things that I did differently this time around was writing a journal of some thoughts about scenes I saw and events that happened.

Death Valley is an unique place. It is a place of extreme heat, lack of water and Nature’s way to show adaptation and survival of life. It is a place of extreme contrasts – from heat of the bottom of the valley to cold mountain tops, from dunes at the bottom to forests at the tops.

Every time I go to Death Valley I spent most time in dunes. I’m captivated by their perfect geometry of line, shape and texture. That’s where I stent most of my time on this trip too. But let’s not skip too far ahead and start at the beginning.

Upon arrival to Las Vegas airport I rented a car – a large SUV with foldable second row of seats, so there is a large enough flat area in the back. The reason was that the way I travelled was very minimalistic: I slept in the car. Before going to Death Valley I stopped at the closest grocery store and loaded up the car with water and food for the whole trip.

Once all preparation was done without much delay I took off to Death Valley. After about 3 hour drive I arrived there. The weather was great. The sky was filled with clouds. It was not typical for Death Valley but great for landscape photography.

Road in Death Valley
Road to Eureka Dunes

Close to Home

Lots of things are waiting to be discovered right around the corner. You just need to make the first step toward them.

I adore photograph made in fog. At the same time there have not been much fog where I live. At some point I share my fog obsession with another local photographer and she suggested me to go to Carnation Valley in fall.

It is only about 10 minutes drive from where I live. To my surprise even when it is clear sky and sunshine outside the valley, the valley itself is filled with thick thick fog. This is likely because there are a lot of marshes there. Driving downhill into the valley is like diving into the fog.

From that point on I always go to Carnation in fall. Here are some photos I’ve made this year:

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Olde Town, WA. The Highways

This project is very different from the kind of photography I do. It is not a landscape as most of my photographs. It is in black-and-white while most of my photography is color. It is not a single photographs as usual but rather a set of photographs which I’m trying to create an impression with. And lastly when I think about this project I want to share my thoughts and impressions of these town rather than talk about how I took specific photographs and why.

Is highway a good thing? Well, of cause – most of you probably say. They let you get from point A to point B by car faster than ever. They are like blood vessels, they help to move things faster. And I say – what about those that left away from them? What happens to those towns?

I’m sure that’s not the only reason but some of the abandonment that I’ve seen in those towns can be contributed to not being on important road anymore. Some time in the pass they were important nodes in network of local roads. Then a highway was built and from that moment on travelers would have to take a detour from a fast moving traffic of highway to visit those towns. And as someone who travels by car a lot I know that once you get in a fast pacing rhythm of highway it is hard to slow down take a side road.

Well, we could say at least those towns which happened to be on highway prosper. And that is not the case either as cars are passing by those towns in a blink of an eye. At most some would stop to refill their gas tanks and what happens over time is that there is not much of a town left besides a gas station.

Final Destination Final Destination