Palouse Barns, Washington

Linda and I got away for a week in the beautiful Palouse region of Washington.  I plan to publish at least three posts from this trip, and possibly more.  One of the sights we enjoyed was the abundance of barns.

This was one of my favorites.  It was in a quiet location near Manning.  The grounds are beautiful, with a manicured lawn and wild roses in the foreground. 

When photographing barns, it helps to include the setting instead of taking an ordinary close-up of the building.  Each barn has a photographic story.  This one somewhere on a back road near Colton is isolated in a field.  Notice that there are no roads or paths leading to the barn, so perhaps it is unused and abandoned.

The Dahmen barn in Uniontown is special.  It is surrounded by a fence made of over 1000 wheels and gears.  The restored 1935 barn houses the work of many first rate artists, including photographers.  We could have spent hours photographing this barn and fence.

One of the things I really enjoyed about these barns was how neat everything is.  The grounds of active farms were almost always immaculately kept, with no junk around.  This was true nearly everywhere we went in the Palouse.  Often, older equipment was restored and displayed on the property, like this color coordinated truck in Uniontown.

We spent a lot of time on back roads, and discovered a few abandoned farms.  This property included a house, outhouse, two combines, and other abandoned machinery.  The surrounding fields were still being cultivated even though these buildings were abandoned.   It was much easier to stop on the back roads and take pictures when we weren’t fighting busy traffic and looking for a place to pull over.

Clouds and shadows made a big difference.  This old barn near Colton wasn’t too exciting since the surrounding fields were bare dirt, but when clouds moved in, the shadows transformed the scene.

The back roads around Colton were just loaded with beautiful barns.  We were delighted to see two together here, and a low viewpoint added the cattle guard for extra interest.

The toughest part of this post was selecting some favorites out of the dozens we stopped to photograph.  The Palouse may not be a big tourist destination, but it sure is a great place for photography.

Please be aware that all my photos are copyrighted, and cannot be used without my permission.