The Gilbert Silos captured at sunset

When one things of capturing an image of a grain silo at sunset, Arizona is probably not the first location that comes to mind.  You would probably think of somewhere like the Palouse region here in Washington State, but in the far east valley of the Phoenix area is the town of Gilbert, which has the Gilbert Silos.

Gilbert, while technically a suburb of Phoenix, is actually a good distance to the south and east of Phoenix, and was a huge agriculture center for decades.  Now days it has become developments of track houses in neighborhoods that look just like any other suburban neighborhood and a downtown that is really trying to give downtown Scottsdale a run for its money when it comes to trendy restaurants and shops.

The nice thing though is that this set of silos, while sort of in the middle of those suburban neighborhoods, still stands, and the residents in the area seem to want them to stay.  

I have shot these silos a number of times but I hadn’t been back to them in a few years until last week when I was out shooting with my good friend Bryan Snider.  It was fun to visit again and we were even rewarded with a nice sunset.

A nigh time light trails image of the 4th and 5th Ave bridages and roundabouts leading into West Olympia

Over the last year or so my day job work requirements have changed quite a bit.  I have found myself lacking the ambition or motivation to get out and do a lot of shooting, especially by myself.  I have made a few trips out with other photographers, and while I do enjoy that, I have always valued solitude and find getting out shooting by myself to be a very relaxing thing.  I captured this image the other evening from the Washington State Capitol grounds of the roundabouts heading to West Oly.  It also has the Deschutes Parkway, 4th Ave. Bridge and the 5th Ave. Bridge.

I really did enjoy getting out and shooting by myself that night.  I visited a handful of my favorite places to shoot from, and will be sharing more images from my little adventure soon.

A dreamy landscape at the Staircase Ranger Station in the Olympics National Park

Ok, I get it, you came to this blog post, which is titles Dreamy Staircase, and the first thing you notice is that there isn’t a single staircase in the entire scene.  Granted, the trees have a bit of a dreamy quality, but even the corner of the building that is in the shot is obviously a single story structure and certainly doesn’t have a staircase, let alone a dreamy one.

So why did I title this image, and blog post, Dreamy Staircase?  For some of us in Western Washington is might actually be somewhat obvious, as I said above the trees have a dreamy quality to them and this was captured at the Staircase region of the Olympic National Park.  See, pretty obvious isn’t it.  :-)

A macro snapshot of a blue flower in my front yard. Decided to take advantage of the sunshine today.

I hate to say this out loud, but I really hope that spring has finally sprung.  I have done very little shooting the last 4 or 5 months, the weather has been terrible.  My personal weather station reports that we have had 35.59 inches of rain just since Jan. 1st, it has been damned wet around here, but today the sun is shining, it is going to be in the mid-60’s and I grabbed a camera with a macro lens during a coffee break from work this morning and grabbed this macro snap shot of some flowers growing in a flower pot on our front porch.

The funny thing is that we dumped a bunch of random flower seeds in this pot a few years ago, we leave it out year round and each spring it seems that a different group of flowers grow.  This year it is these little blue guys.

Upper Tumwater falls is actually divided into two segments. This is the north segment

It’s no secret that I like to shoot at Tumwater Falls Park. It is a great little walk and there are three very photogenic waterfalls. Generally I say that Middle Tumwater Falls is my favorite, but if I am going to be completely honest, it is probably the hardest to shoot as there are fewer good vantage points.  The lower falls are the iconic falls that is featured on the Olympia Beer can, and Upper Tumwater Falls are the first that you see when you park your car and head out into the park.

Upper Tumwater Falls is actually broken into two segments, this image is of the more northerly section of the falls.  The south segment would be off the right in this image.  In the image from this previous blog post you can see both sections of the falls.

Trust me, this isn’t the last time you will see me post images of Tumwater Falls, or from the park, I love to shoot there.