A farm on the Palouse as seen from Steptoe Butte

When most people think about the Palouse, at least from a photographic standpoint, they think of the rolling hills and the colors of the fields.  What they might not think of is that the Palouse is actually a community.  The landscape is dotted with family farms which in many cases have been there for generations, and sadly in some cases the current generation are the last that will be farming the area as family farmers.  Between corporate pressure and the younger generation not wanting to be farmers, the era will come to an end.

From a photographic standpoint though, the small family farms provide a nice contrast to the almost dreamy landscapes of the Palouse.  You can, as in the case of this image, zoom way in and isolate a single farm, or zoom out, as I will in an upcoming blog post image, and see the entire landscape dotted with family farms.

This image was captured from Steptoe Butte just before sunset during my recent #NwNW2015 expedition.  I hope you enjoy it and as always, simply click on the image to see a larger version.

This week marks the start of the 2015 edition of the Thurston County Fair.  This is my second year entering some of my photography into the Open Photography exhibit.  Last year I entered 6 image and brought home 5 ribbons.  I also entered 6 images and I am happy to report that all 6 of my images this year were recognized with ribbons.  The following are the 6 images I entered, but like last year, I am not going to tell you which image got which color of ribbon, you will just have to go to the fair and find out. :-)

The Vietnam Memorial Wall in Olympia, WA

4th of July fireworks shot at the Tumwater Valley golf course

Oly making the best of being in a cast but still managing to play

A night image of the soon to be closed Simpson Mill in Shelton, WA

Woman enjoying a cup of coffee in solitude overlooking the Pacific Ocean

Downtown Olympia with Percival Landing in the foreground and Mt. Rainier in the background

There we are, my 6 entries into the 2015 Thurston County Fair.  Again, all 6 images did get ribbons, but I am not going to say what they are until after the fair is over.  Please feel free though to speculate in the comment section if you are so inclined. :-)

The Philadelphia skyline shot from Camden, NJ at sunset

Taking a little break from sharing lightning images from my recent trip to Arizona to share another image from a work trip I took to Philadelphia in June.  I have already shared an image I made of a Philadelphia Sunset that I shot from the Ben Franklin Bridge.

This image was made a couple nights after the one that I had previously shared and was shot from the Camden, NJ waterfront.

I wanted to remind everyone that even though the images displayed here on my blog are scalable to the screen that you are viewing them on, if you click on the image itself it will take you to the full screen version.  From there you can also explore the entire gallery that the image is part of.  Oh yeah, you can also order prints of anything in my galleries. :-)