The Palouse
The Palouse is photographers paradise, an area of the country straddling the border between Idaho and Washington State. and lying, approximately, between Spokane and Lewiston. The countryside is a series of more-or-less random rolling hills and valleys created by glaciers thousands of years ago. The land is also in a temperate zone between the arid zone of eastern Washington state and the western foothills of the Rockies. Farmers plant a wide variety of crops, including speciality crops such as mustard seed and hops.
These photos were taken all in one day, July third, 2011. It was a Sunday the middle of a three day holiday for most people, since July fourth fell on a Monday that year, and the roads were virtually empty. As i drove, I would stop the car from time-to-time, get out and take a picture. The photos are sequential, the first being taken around 9:30 AM and the last about 8:00 PM.
I see the photos as a series of color tone poems between the land, sky, sun, and clouds, changing as the day changes, and as the land changes as I drive along the country roads. The photos also have, to me, a somewhat surreal quality; in part because the shadows are cast by the sun striking the clouds behind the camera, and not by the clouds that appear in the photos. There are two ubiquitous elements, the power poles, and the grey gravel farm roads and black top highways, which appear in many of the photos; they add continuity to the series.
