Slide Scan Project

 
It has been a long time since I posted to this blog, mostly because I haven’t gone on any trips or adventures in ages.  This has been a tough year because of the COVID-19 global pandemic.  Linda and I are both in the high-risk category, so we try hard to minimize contact with other people.

However, it has been a great chance to complete a huge photography project scanning thousands of slides dating back to 1965.  I started with 42 shoeboxes of slides that filled most of a closet, and as of today I have 3 boxes to go.  The sorting process has been time consuming and the vast majority have been discarded without being scanned.  Even the ones I decide to scan are discarded after the digital images have been created and backed up.  As of today, over 13,000 slides have been scanned, so I am sure I started with over 100,000.

This is one of those photos from 1965 taken on a cross-country trip from Connecticut in a 1962 VW van.  It shows our van in the Wawona tunnel tree in Yosemite National Park, California.

This has been a rewarding project that has brought back hundreds of memories of events and people I had totally forgotten about.  I have become reacquainted with places I visited decades ago, and it has taken me through the ups and downs of life.  I have seen old friends when they were younger and watched my son grow up.  I have photos of wonderful times spent with my wife, Linda, and have seen the changes we made when we moved from California to Idaho.

This photo was taken in 1975 of my son Brian's first fish, caught at Collins Lake in California.  I was delighted to find the slide.

I have been able to send digital photos to Brian covering his years from birth to adult.   I found nostalgic photos of my two brothers and Linda’s sister who have all passed away.   I sent dozens of photos to my camping buddies showing them on our annual trips.

For example, in 1984 Bruce Gregory, Stephen Johnson, and I got stuck in the Devil's Playground in the Mojave Desert on one of our early camping trips.  We have now been on 50 camping trips and this slide is a priceless photo from an early trip.

I have also seen my photography improve from blurry, poorly composed photos of the cross-country trip in 1965 to photos that are, uh… less blurry and poorly composed.  The scans are not done yet, but I am up to 2005 when I started shooting both digital and film photos.  It took a while to complete the conversion to digital cameras, and after this project I can use my old slides as digital photos in email, flickr, my web site, etc.

A shipyard in Treffiagat, Brittany, France taken on a trip with Linda in 1998, scanned from a slide.

Cunningham cabin in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, scanned from a slide taken in 2003.

I am very impressed with my scanner, an Epson Perfection V800 which scans 12 slides at a time and does a great job eliminating dust spots.  I use Vuescan software which has more control than the Epson software.  I think Vuescan is more user friendly than comparable Silverfast software.  Another helpful purchase was an electronic duster which has saved me from buying countless cans of canned air.  The scanner has worked perfectly through this long project.

If you have a closet full of slides that you haven’t looked at in years, I recommend scanning them.  Not only will you gain a lot of closet space, your kids won’t have to throw them out someday, and you will be rewarded with a lot of wonderful memories.  What should I do when I complete this project?  Maybe I will scan my old black and white negatives.

Please note that my photos are all copyrighted and cannot be used for any purpose without my permission, and sometimes a small fee.

Painted Desert, Arizona

My most recent post showed petrified wood at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.  The other big attraction at the park is often called the “painted desert”.

The painted desert stretches across much of northern Arizona, so this national park covers just a small portion, but it is easily accessible here.  The brown debris near the center of this photo is probably fragments of petrified logs.

The layers of color were created over millions of years of change in the earth’s surface.  Earthquakes, volcanic ash, and flooding deposited layer after layer of different minerals, and erosion exposed them for us to see.

These hills are known as “the tepees”.

I only had a few hours to explore the park, but I noticed that the best petrified logs are in the south, and the best views of the painted desert are in the north.

The variations of color are just amazing, and this photo gives some idea of the vast uninhabited space around the Park.

There are other attractions in the park including petroglyphs, pueblo ruins, and a Route 66 monument.  It is well worth the trip.

Thanks for looking, but remember that these are copyrighted photos that can not be used without permission, and in most cases a reasonable fee.

Petrified Forest

I drove to Tucson last month to visit my son Brian and his wife Laura.  On the way back I took an extra day to explore Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook, Arizona.  There are two main attractions there, the painted desert and the petrified forest.  Here is the story of the Petrified Forest.

Some people think they are going to see a standing forest here, but the trees turned to stone after they fell and were washed downstream and buried during the late Triassic period around 200 million years ago.

As millions of years passed, the buried logs absorbed water and silica from volcanic ash which crystallized into quartz which often kept some of the logs’ details.

Spectacular colors were added by various minerals.  The colors in this photo have not been altered.

The crystallized logs were harder than the soil where they were buried.  Over time, erosion removed the surrounding dirt and the logs surfaced.  Sometimes the logs helped reduce the erosion under them, leaving them balanced on a narrow ridge.

Many of the huge logs look like they have been sectioned with a chainsaw.  This happened when they were still buried and earth movement caused forces that snapped the crystallized logs like breaking glass rods.

The petrified logs are mostly in the southern part of the park, but if you go be sure to see the painted desert in the north as well.

I hope you enjoy the photos, but remember they are copyrighted.  Please don’t use them without permission.

Granite, Montana Ghost Town

I knew that Bruce Gregory and Stephen Johnson would enjoy Granite, Montana based on my visit there in 2005 with my wife and our neighbors.  So, Granite was one of our destinations on our summer camping trip.

There was a silver bonanza in the 1880’s on Granite Mountain, and soon the mountaintop was packed with buildings.  The centerpiece was the magnificent Miner’s Union Hall, now a big brick ruin.  The elegant building once had a dance floor / auditorium, lodge room, office, library, and more.

Mae Werning’s house is down the street.  She was the watchman and last resident of Granite and died in 1969 at age 75.  Most houses now are just piles of lumber or overgrown rock foundations.

Granite Mills A and B together ran 80 stamps until the 1890’s.  In the 1950’s the buildings were intentionally burned for safety reasons, leaving these gigantic foundations.

Just down the road along the face of the mountain ruined structures of the Ruby Mine are on the verge of collapse.
Granite has some of the biggest ghost town structures we have found on our camping trips.  It is amazing to think about what it was like to live and work here more than a century ago.
I hope you enjoy these photos, but please be aware that they are copyrighted and can not be used for any purpose without permission and reasonable compensation.

Elkhorn, Montana Ghost Town

I am still trying to catch up on reviewing photos from our annual camping trip to Montana.  So, here are photos of Elkhorn, Montana, one of five ghost towns we visited in July.

 This silver mining town was established in 1872 and had a peak population of about 2500.  Now the population is 10, but I’ll bet most of them are part time residents.

The big attraction for ghost town hunters is Gillian Hall (left) and the Fraternity Hall (right).  These buildings are now preserved as Montana’s smallest state park.

The National Register of Historic Places states that the Fraternity Hall (built in 1893) is perhaps the most photographed ghost town building in the United States and lists it as number 1 of 12 western structures that should be saved.  This room was used for dances, meetings, and theatrical shows.

Elkhorn is a mix of abandoned and restored buildings.

The beautiful cemetery is on a quiet isolated hillside.  A large number of children were buried there after a diphtheria epidemic in 1888 - 1889.

Mining relics and ruins are scattered around, but most are in areas posted “no trespassing”.  The mines opened and closed several times and were finally closed for good in 1937 after producing about $14 million of silver.  Except for the two Halls, most of the town is private property but can be photographed from the road.

Please be aware that these photos are copyrighted.  If you would like to use them for any reason, please contact me.  My fees are very reasonable, and often free for charitable purposes.

Fantasy Canyon, Utah

Fantasy Canyon is a strange area of eroded gray sandstone about 40 miles from Vernal, Utah.  It covers about 10 acres and has an easy trail.

The entire site is covered with fantastically eroded pillars and gargoyle-like figures.  Early names were the “Devil’s Playground” and “Hades Pit”.

The quartzose rocks of Fantasy Canyon were deposited 38 to 50 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch.  This area was once prehistoric Lake Uinta.

These rocks were on the shore of the lake and different minerals have weathered at different rates, creating the fantastic figures here.

Fantasy Canyon is very fragile.  As old formations erode away, new ones will be formed.

You should be aware that Fantasy Canyon is the territory of pygmy rattlesnakes, although I didn't see any.

Getting there can be tricky.  After driving on good roads for about 35 miles, you turn into a maze of dirt roads in a desert gas field, but the BLM has posted very helpful signs.  We have been told than even a small amount of rain makes these roads impassable, so stay out if clouds are moving in.

As usual, my photos are copyrighted, so please ask for permission before you use them for any purpose.  In most cases, a small fee will be charged.

Moonshine Arch, Utah

Linda and I are visiting her sister, Pat, in Vernal, Utah.  This is wild country near Dinosaur National Monument, and we have explored it several times.  But until now we have never heard of Moonshine Arch.

Getting to the arch was half the fun, and at my age I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I drove about a mile on dirt roads before hiking another mile or so, including about a half mile up a fairly steep, rough ridge, and back down again.  It wouldn’t be a big deal for a younger person, but I was glad to find I could still do it.

The arch is remarkable.  It parallels a huge rock alcove.  Obviously, thousands of years of flash floods have roared downhill, scoured out the alcove in a huge curve, and worn through a wall of rock to form Moonshine Arch.  The arch is about 85 feet long and 40 feet high.

I made the hike in the morning to avoid the afternoon heat, and the light was on the back of the arch, visible from the alcove.  The outside of the arch was in shadow.

If you plan to go, take plenty of water, park outside the fence, and hike the rest of the way.  An ATV or jeep might make it part way, but the ruts and rocks are a real challenge.

Please remember, my photos are copyrighted.  Please contact me if you want to use them.  My fees are reasonable.

The Shane Cabin

Linda and I stayed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for two nights so we could explore Grand Teton National Park.  After seeing most of the popular sights we left the crowds and drove to the Gros Ventre River Road.  Here we found a cluster of three log buildings popularly known as the Shane cabin.

This is an old homestead with a remarkable history in popular culture.  It started In 1916 when Luther Taylor homesteaded here.

Extra care was made to make the cabin comfortable.  The inside of each log was flattened, insulated with newspapers, whitewashed and covered with layers of decorative wallpaper.  The marks of the ax or adze can still be seen, but the paper covering is gone.  Through a window we could see one of the outbuildings.

In 1948 the property was sold to rancher Andy Chambers and his son Roy, who rented the cabin out for a couple of years.  The cabin had been vacant for a while when it was used in the 1953 movie "Shane" and has been abandoned since then.  The black and white photo shows the other remaining outbuilding.

This beautiful view of the Grand Tetons was probably one reason the cabin was selected for the iconic western movie, thought by many to be one of the best ever.

Now the cabin is returning to the earth.  The roof and floor are gone, and the cabin’s floor joists balance on a few remaining foundation rocks.  No one has tried to preserve the site and there isn’t even a sign to describe its wonderful history as a homestead and then a movie star.

Please be aware that these photos are copyrighted.  They must not be used without my permission.

Museum of Clean Gallery

The Museum of Clean is a quirky, fun, family oriented museum in Pocatello, Idaho.  They have such diverse displays as antique pre-electric vacuum cleaners, the world's first motorized vacuum cleaner (which was horse-drawn), a chimney sweep exhibit, and a replica of Noah’s Ark in a state-of-the-art 74,000 square foot building.  They also have an art gallery which includes a rotating display by local artists.

Don Aslett is the founder of the museum.  He has written 40 books and completed over 6000 seminars, workshops, and TV filmings all about “clean.”  I spoke to him when I visited the museum a few months ago, and he said he would like to have Linda and me exhibit there.  I had forgotten all about it, when one day I got a phone call inviting us to hang our photos in November 2017.

So, Linda and I hung 24 photos in the art gallery at the museum for the month of November.  A few are shown here.  I would like to thank Don Aslett for the opportunity, and Museum director Brad Kisling for all his help getting us set up.  He could not have been friendlier or more helpful.  Just about everyone should enjoy a visit to this very unusual museum.
www.museumofclean.com

As usual, our photos are copyrighted and cannot be used without our permission.

Bear Lake County Fair - After Dark

The Bear Lake County Fair in Montpelier, Idaho is always a wonderful event.  There are rodeos, entertainment, food booths, animals, rides, craft displays, and of course a big photography display.  But after dark the fair really comes to life, and the lights are a great opportunity for photographers.

Carnival photos are best just after sunset so there is a little light and color in the sky.  This Ferris wheel changes color, and if you change shutter speeds you can get anything from colorful spokes of light to a blurred circle in infinite variations.  This one was ½ second exposure.

This is the same Ferris wheel from the other side, with carnival game prizes in the corner.  This one was taken after the sky got totally dark, and the shutter speed was 1.3 seconds, resulting in an entirely different pattern.  To reduce camera shake, a tripod is a necessity and a remote shutter release or self timer also helps.  If your camera has image stabilization, turn it off while using the tripod.

This photo of entertainers Dave Anderson and Thatch Elmer was taken on the outdoor stage.  The lights were bright enough to take the photo without a tripod, but in order to pick up details in the light and shadow, three photos were bracketed two stops over and under normal, and combined in the computer using Photomatix Essentials.  The software did an amazing job removing blur caused by people moving.

This food booth photo on the midway was taken with a 2.5 second exposure.  It is fun to use these long exposures to blur moving people.  Everyone becomes anonymous using longer exposures.

Longer exposures can also be used to make abstract images.  This giant swing was exposed for 0.8 seconds, but as the dangling swings were being lowered I increased the exposure to 2.5 seconds to create the abstract image.

So, look for bright colors, movement, and lights to get unusual photos at the county fair.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and must not be used without permission, and usually a small fee.