10/15/19

On my way out to Pennsylvania, I stopped at a place that has always intrigued me when I saw it from the highway.  This is the original Mail Pouch Tobacco Warehouse in West Virginia.  It is still operating today as a Swisher International warehouse.  This image may look like just a normal shot but I had to take it up close with just a normal wide angle lens on so it is actually 3 shots stitched together with a good amount of work behind the scenes done.  I find it funny sometimes all the work I do to a photo but you would not know just to see it without knowing the behind the scenes work.  Anyway, this is the company that those old barns had painted advertising on them that you can still find a few of today including a couple along the Pennsylvania turnpike.

9/24/19

I took this image back in June at Rollag during Steam School.  I actually shot this with my phone and am pretty impressed by the quality it gets.  I have a Google Pixel 3XL and it is great for when I am not able to have my actual camera with me.  I took a couple of items out of the photo which were newer looking and then converted it to B&W and I thought it made for a rather timeless image.

9/17/19

Years ago I had shot this gas station at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion from a different angle.  I love the character of this old style station and decided to shoot it again from a different angle.  I love all the detail and auto related items around it.

5/4/19

This is a bit different image for me.  This is an antique mailbox that some friends of mine have.  I love the character of it with the rust patina and just the old style look to it.  This type of mailbox would be fun to have instead of the boring boxy ones they are around now.

7/4/18

5/22/18

This is an older image from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan.  I have so much to share from there if I want because that place was just filled with very neat displays of all kinds of steam engines and transportation and just Americana type items.  I love old gas pumps and thought this display was very neat with the sleek gas truck in it as well.

9/25/17

I was talking about this photo elsewhere and I mentioned barns in the Midwest are usually wood but then I got to thinking about my Saturday image of the barn at Konza and that's not totally true either.  I shot this in Spring in Pennsylvania.  Their barns have a bit different shape than Midwest ones with the overhangs and a lot will have slot style windows.  I love barns and always thought it would be neat to have a house made out of one.

9/23/17

I took this image back in June after an evening out at Konza Prairie.  This is the stone barn at sunset that has been restored and converted into meeting areas.  Some of the barn features and woodwork and stone was kept in the interior restoration and it is quite beautiful inside as well as out.

3/11/17

Trying to get snow photos but it's not good snow.  No single flakes.  Warming up for a bit.
My image for today is a summery one from a trip to West Virginia.  Over on Google + the daily theme was Squares and this image fit the bill.  I love finding these old barns.  Mail Pouch Tobacco barns were quite popular at one time along highways in the US.  I saw this one on a trip to West Virginia when I was going back to the campsite after a train ride.  The Mail Pouch Headquarters was in WV and I go by the town all the time and always think I'll stop next time and still haven't done it.  

9/28/16

I decided to share something fun and different today.  When I was in Rapid City South Dakota I saw this.  There is a park, called Dinosaur Park, high on a hill overlooking the city that had seven dinosaur figures made of concrete.  They were created during the Depression by the Chamber of Commerce as a way to create jobs, get the government to pay for them and to get some of the tourist traffic to Mount Rushmore.  They were dedicated on May 22, 1936.

1/23/16

Well, our 5 to 6 inches of snow is nothing compared to what they are getting out east.  My dad in Pennsylvania has a foot already and still coming down at 1 to 3 inches an hour!  Yikes.  I am glad we don't get snows like that.  We are just cold and dreary today with our bit of snow on the ground.  Today's image comes from a tip out to PA and an outing to view covered bridges in the central part of the state.  A large number of them have been kept up and restored and painted but this one, the Mount Pleasant, was very worn and faded looking so I decided to turn it into a monochrome image that I thought worked fairly well.  I gave it a sepia tone as well.

1/12/15

So I finished my Wildlife Challenge.  It was fun to do.  Today I am dipping into the archives again and posting an image that I re-worked from several years back on an outing to see covered bridges in Pennsylvania.  This was a fairly long one in central PA called Adairs Bridge.  All of the bridges we saw that day were painted red, it was just that they were in varying states of decay.  This one has seen some work done to it.  It's nice to see this bit of history still in existence.  

12/31/15

Well, here we are at the last day of 2015, Happy New Year's Eve!  Let's hope next year is better than this one has been at times.  Especially the way it ended with all the stress.  At least we are ending it on a sunny day.  I have been rather uninspired to shoot photos lately except of birds and some of those have not been my best shots.  :-)  I have been looking at old albums and reworking some images and this is one of them.  This is Waggoners Bridge that I shot in Pennsylvania a few years back when on an outing to shoot covered bridges with my brother.  This one is privately owned and one of the more picturesque that I shot that day with the waterfall in the background that can be viewed underneath it.

7/7/15

This is a kind of fitting post today because as this posts we should be on a bike ride, though not motorized, on an old railroad route in South Dakota.  On Sunday we visited Sturgis where they hold the huge motorcycle rally every year, this year is the 75th Anniversary.  They have a great motorcycle museum there and this is one of them featured.  This is an Indian Military bike which I had never seen before, these are usually Harleys.  This one was a 1943 Military Scout 741 bike that was restored in the 1990s.  If I could have any antique motorcycle, I would have an Indian.  They are very beautiful bikes. 

4/28/15

The Geary County Historical Society held an event at the Spring Valley Historic Site this past Saturday.  The Commanding General's Color Guard from Fort Riley was there with a couple of horses doing a camp re-enactment.  I got this image of one of the soldier's dressed in Civil War era uniform riding by the school house itself and thought it made for a nice photo with the flag waving.

2/10/15

I was going through some older photos looking at ones I had never posted before for something different.  I have always liked and photographed these old Mail pouch barns whenever I find one.  Mail Pouch Tobacco originated in Wheeling West Virginia and they had a painter that went around and painted barns to advertise the product.  A lot of these are decaying pretty badly now.  some have been restored but quite a number are gone or in this type of shape.  I like to record them before they disappear.  Found this one on a highway in West Virginia on the way back from Cass Mountain.

1/9/15

I've had about enough of winter and we are barely even into it.  This image reminds me of warmer and peaceful days.  This is a view of the horse power area of the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion grounds.  This area does not have steam but showcases how horses were utilized during the same time period.  It was looking rather lovely on this particular day.

8/24/14

This is a beautifully restored Stanley Steamer that was driving around the grounds in Rollag, MN this past June.  I had to take this shot with my phone because it was the only camera I had with me at the time.  Not too bad.  :-)  I would have loved to have gotten a ride in this but never worked it out.  Ah well, maybe sometime.  

3/22/14

While I was in Pennsylvania we went to the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, PA.  I found it more interesting than I thought I would.  Displays were very nice and some interesting clocks and watches.  These are a couple that I particularly liked as they are different to the usual Felix the Cat type clocks I always see.  They were in a novelty clock section of the museum.

3/4/14

This is an older shot but one I quite like so am going to share.  I took this back when we went out to the Grand Canyon in New Mexico I believe.  It was along the infamous Route 66 and I believe that this was a museum commemorating the Route.  It was closed at the time.  I liked all the old style elements in it especially those gas pumps.  I put a bit of an HDR effect on it and quite liked the result.