Trail of Kansas Grain Elevators

Greensburg Kansas Grain Elevator

https://thelonelycreative.com/softcover-notebooks/ Greensburg Kansas Grain Elevator © 2011 Bo Mackison

follow site In Kansas we dodged the interstate for a two lane road that cut 90 miles from our travels. Crossing Kansas on Highway 54 there are only small towns separated by a few miles. Usually the only structures of any height or size in these hamlets are the massive grain elevators. And since every gathering of houses had at least one, I decided to document my travels from Wichita to Liberal, Kansas with grain elevators.

Road Trip - Joy Kansas

https://bettierose.co.uk/faqs/ Joy Kansas Grain Elevator © 2011 Bo Mackison

go My camera did a better job of shooting distance vs. close up and straight out the window rather than at an angle. So there will be wonky roads, wonky silos, wonky signposts, and out of focus grasses in the foreground. Consider it part of the charm of a series of Kansas grain elevators taken with the iPhone and the Hipstamatic app.

Mullinville Kansas Grain Elevator

https://anthonynewmancamps.com/lacrosse-camps/ Mullinville Kansas Grain Elevator © 2011 Bo Mackison

follow site I considered cropping this and straightening the verticals. Then decided against much post processing. Who has time to play with their photos on a computer when on a car trip? When we hit the motels at night we have tomorrow’s traveling on our minds. (Also who is the quickest to grab the best pillow.)

Bucklin Kansas Grain Elevator

Zolpidem Buy Online Bucklin Kansas Grain Elevator © 2011 Bo Mackison

go site I’m not sure how I managed to photograph this grain elevator in Bucklin considering it was in the middle of the afternoon. Looks like an evening or night photo. But it’s got an interesting quality about it. Glad it’s not my job to climb those stairs circling the sides. Sherpa agrees.

Road Trip - Kansas Grain Elevators

Zolpidem Online Order Kingsdown Kansas Grain Elevators © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/general-info/ As we headed further south, the grain elevators became larger and larger. Six stacks in Kingsdown. Kismet, Kansas also had a large elevator , but we fell into a fit of laughter as we drove through town and missed any photo of any part of Kismet. Next time…

Road Trip - Minneola Kansas

Minneola Kansas Grain Elevators © 2011 Bo Mackison

And at least ten cylinders in Minneola.

I am not an expert on grain elevators and my internet access is sketchy enough that I won’t be doing any research for a while. But there are a lot of harvested fields and a lot of filled grain silos.

Liberal Kansas

Liberal Kansas Grain Elevator © 2011 Bo Mackison

The last in a long line of grain elevators. Liberal was my favorite of the grain elevator towns, though it had nothing to do with the grain elevators.

Liberal’s main street is christened Pancake Blvd. How can you not love a town that forgoes Main Street for Pancake Blvd.

From Liberal, we zagged through the panhandle of Oklahoma and then the panhandle of Texas before driving fifty miles in New Mexico and settling in a cozy motel in Tucamacori.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is on an extended explore with Sherpa and crossing New Mexico, soon to be in Arizona.

Rules of the Road

Kansas Minimalist

Kansas Minimalist © 2011 Bo Mackison

Day two of our 1800 mile sojourn across half the country and we spent the majority of our traveling time traversing the state of Kansas.  Kansas does not seem like one of those states that should take most of a day to cross, but we began our day near the northeast corner (Kansas City) and crossed the border into Oklahoma near the southwest corner (Liberal). All in all, we drove just over 600 miles in Kansas.

Plenty enough miles to photograph a dozen or so photographs in the minimalist style. Road, grass, road, more grass, field, foothills, fog.

Minimalism, Midwest style.

Road Trip - Wichita Kansas

Road Trip – Wichita Kansas © 2011 Bo Mackison

Here is my best view of Wichita. It seems like a nice city, and its the largest city in Kansas. I hoped for a chance to get a photograph of the downtown from the right lane of the interstate. But it seemed appropriate to keep up with the traffic, and I guarantee you, the drivers in the other vehicles were not the least bit impressed that I was manuevering for a clear photo of Wichita.

Road Trip - Hay Roll Row

Hay Rolls © 2011 Bo Mackison

While on the road, and under a fair amount of pressure to “not stop unless the car needs gas”,  Sherpa and I have come up with a fair number of rules regarding my photography habit. This is not as dire as it might sound, for we generally make up the rules while in a subdued fit of hysterical laughing. (There is only so much hysterical laughing one can tolerate while maintaining control of speeding car and trailer, so subdued laughter is appropriate.)

A few of the rules we have instituted are:

  • no slowing down for any photographic experience, traffic flow must be maintained at all times
  • no detours of any sort, not even a half block in and back
  • no turn arounds, none — no photograph is worth a turnaround (says Sherpa) when we are on a schedule with a deadline

This is certainly not the kind of photography I know so well. It is a different kind of photography. And one I am beginning to develop an appreciation for. I think there may be times for slow photography — my usual MO — and fast photography, which I seem to be experimenting with on the fly.

Road Trip - Tracks in Bloom Kansas

Road Trip – Railroad Tracks © 2011 Bo Mackison

One thing I have already discovered that is worth remembering — slow photography is best done as a solo activity or an activity with another person with a definite start and stop time. Fast photography can be done with a spouse or in a crowd. Since there is no stopping in fast photography, no one is ever inconvenienced. A new concept for me, perhaps, but one that all slow photographers should probably learn at some point in their career.

Road Trip - Red Barn

Road Trip – Red Barn © 2011 Bo Mackison

Fast photography does require some abandonment of truths I thought were universal and inviolable. One does not always need to change lenses so that a teensy, far away, red barn can be seen in focus and close up. One can merely give the suggestion of a red barn in the distance and most viewers will accept red blur in distant background as a red barn. Excellent to know when practicing fast photography.

Does anyone reading this NOT see the red blur, uh, barn in the background? I thought not.

Road Trip - Golden Cottonwoods

Golden Cottonwoods © 2011 Bo Mackison

Sometimes in fast photography, the photo is all about color. After driving for eons and seeing nothing that resembled a splash of bright color, the mere fact that these cottonwoods were glowing in the sunlight in an aura of gold was noteworthy.

I have just been informed that the motel check out has been completed and the car is packed. Day Two will continue when internet access is again available.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio. She is learning fast photography while on a fast road trip. She promises — more to follow.

Road Trip – Day One

Goodbye, Books

Goodbye, Books © 2011 Bo Mackison

We are on our way.

Monday we packed the art show trailer, adding some of my Southwestern photographs to my Midwest collection. I’m thinking of calling my trailer the “Sardine can” – packed to the gills. Bad pun, hmmm? Only been on the road a full day and already I’ve caught the infectious pun bug from Sherpa.

We are driving the trailer that holds all the makings of an art booth to the Southwest in preparation for the upcoming Arizona shows. This year we decided to travel in November and hope for good weather. Last year the weather gods failed us in late January and we drove most of the 1800 miles in a mix of rain, ice and snow. An experience we’d rather not repeat in this lifetime.

Before I left, I grabbed more books than I’ll admit to, and stowed them in the car. Then I said goodbye to one of my many book cases. Sherpa doesn’t understand why I can’t go on a trip without taking a large sampling of my library. I don’t understand how he can go on a trip without taking a pile of books.

Goodbye, books.

Goodbye My Bed, Hello Hotel Bed

Goodbye, My Bed © 2011 Bo Mackison

If there is one thing I miss when on a road trip it is my bed. My firm mattress, my bunches of pillows, my layers of soft blankets. I am not a fan of hotel beds, but then I’d rather deal with hotel beds than no bed at all.

Goodbye, bed.

Wisconsin Road Trip

On (the road) Wisconsin! © 2011 Bo Mackison

If you are a regular reader at Seeded Earth, you have already noticed that these photographs look nothing like what I typically post. After another photog introduced me to his iPhonography, I decided it would be easier to chronicle my travels via cell phone camera compared to my regular camera gear. So I packed my big camera safely among great piles of suitcases and boxes, and I’m having a great time taking photos with this wonky App called the Hipstamatic.

Since I have little idea how to use its many hidden features, I’ll let you follow my progress as I learn by experimenting. I think there is no better way to learn than by playing with all the buttons and looking at the results.

Others may read instruction manuals first. I find it much more expedient to read the instruction manual after I’ve used the product for a while. Then I have a better idea what the manual writers are trying, in their round about fashion, to tell me.

If you were particularly attentive, perhaps you noticed the title of the above photo, “On (the road) Wisconsin!” I don’t have to explain to my fellow Wisconsinites the meaning of the title. To anyone else, just know it refers to football and badgers and meat packers.

Dubuque, Iowa

Dubuque, Iowa © 2011 Bo Mackison

I made up a few rules for my introduction into the world of iPhonography. As I already noted, no instructions. The other rule is no stopping for photos and no regrets.

Whenever we have been on the road on previous trips, no matter how short or long, our conversations follow this line of thought:

Me: [looking in the distance] Oh, that would make a great photo!!!
Sherpa: Do you want me to stop?
Me: [sad voice] Nooooo. If we stop for every photo, we won’t get to [fill in the blank] today.
Sherpa: [as we drive ever farther away from the un-photographed scene] Well, give me more notice and I’ll stop.
Me: [in deep confusion, not knowing how I can give him notice any sooner] Oh.

This conversation no longer exists. I snap away happily (with the touch of my finger pad against a tiny glass surface) and capture the mood of our trip. I am not going for classic photographs at this point anyway. And Sherpa gets to drive with as few stops as is humanly possible.

And we are both happy.

Iowa Road Trip

The Same Old Scenery © 2011 Bo Mackison

This is what the scenery looked like traversing the length of Iowa and much of Missouri. Enough said.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is on an extended explore with Sherpa. She is also adapting to on the road photography.

 

Discovering My World

Watching Lake Mendota

Watching Lake Mendota © 2011 Bo Mackison

Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.  ~ Buddha

 

Gray Birches

Birches

Birches © 2011 Bo Mackison

The state of mind of the photographer while creating is blank… [but] it is a very active state of mind, really a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed at any time.                      ~ Minor White

The gray birch is sometimes called an old field birch or a pioneer birch. It often grows in abandoned fields or pastures. This birch was standing at the edge of a construction site and grew wild many years ago.

I loved the black markings on the trunk, triangular-shaped areas where branches were once attached. And the tiny hatch markings that cover the rest of the trunk. Yellow leaves from the tree behind this birch provided the color for the background.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. One of the greatest side benefits of nature photography are the walks in the woods required for scouting photo subjects.