Closed

Closed

Americana in its rawest form. That is what I thought when I first saw this 1920's style Filling Station/Cafe located in Kent Oregon, along US Highway 97 some 100 miles north of Bend and about 40 miles south of the Columbia River which divides Washington and Oregon. While the building has long since been abandoned, what intrigued me most were the gas pumps. The pumps have been hand painted over several times in an assortment of colors, hiding the once colorful corporate pride of the Phillips 66 gasoline brand. There are only three digits for displaying the price, one of which was for the antiquated 9/10th of a cent. These pumps still had the price of 66 9/10 cents. The gasoline brand logos have almost all faded or been scratched off. Remnants of any affiliation with corporate America have all but disappeared. One small sticker on the bottom left hand reverse side of these pumps still says Phillips 66. Octane ratings read 100. That was equivalent to the aviation fuel used in the crop duster planes back in the day.

This part of Oregon is heavily agricultural and this area in particular was dedicated to raising hops. Hops are primarily used as a stability and flavoring agent in beer. Hops have been a vital crop in this central Oregon prairie town since the 1940's. The down-home country style design of the building is reminescent of the gasoline station/cafes of the 1920's and 30's, but I suspect this building was built in the 1940's. The cafe even advertised to the crop dusting pilots overhead with a sign that has long since weathered away. Painted in white on the shingled gable roof read the words: EAT. High atop the front roof of this commercial venture is a plastic Orange Crush soda pop sign. The only sign of any meaning that still remains. Owned and worked by a husband and wife for many years, when the business started to fail the husband hired on to work in the hops field to make ends meet while the wife remained at the cafe. This rest stop oasis along this lonely stretch of the Sherman Highway finally closed when the wife fell ill and found herself unable to keep up the cafe or pump the gas. The husband found himself tending to his wife's health and lost interest in keeping the business open. Closed.

The photo was taken with a Nikon D800 in the late afternoon on Christmas Day. A photograph taken with both low setting sun and deep dark shadows is a challenge. A dozen or so shots were taken in order to comprise this one image; Nikkor 24mm-70mm zoom lens with focal length set to 24mm lens, aperture at f/13, 1/60 second shutter speed, ISO 100 with matrix metering.

Point Arena

Point Arena Lighthouse

Located about 130 miles north of San Francisco in Mendocino County is Point Arena, California. The 115-foot tall lighthouse tower currently standing here dates from 1908. The original lighthouse built of brick and mortar at this location was destroyed in 1906 along with the earthquake that devastated San Francisco. The tower that exists today was built by a smoke stack construction company that constructed it of concrete and reinforcing steel to withstand earthquakes, the first constructed like this on the west coast. Due to the high cost of construction at the time, much of the work had to be done by the lightkeepers and their families. The sandbar on which the lighthouse is built extends about 1/2 mile out into the Pacific Ocean from the mainland and is the closet point on the west coast to Hawaii. A fog horn signal originally accompanied the lighthouse to aid in navigation.

The original first order Fresnel lens produced a light that could be seen 19 miles out to sea, was made in France and consisted of 666 hand ground glass prisms weighing 12,000 lbs. This optic lens was supported by a solid brass framework which as a total assembly was valued at $3.5 million in 1908. The lens turned by way of a clockwork mechanism suspended in the center height of the tower that had to be hand cranked to the top of the tower every 75 minutes by the "wickies", or keepers. The light was produced by a "Funks" hydraulic oil lamp and required refueling every four hours.

It is recorded that in the waning days of WWII, the Japanese had plans to invade the US mainland and one of the key locations for this invasion was Point Arena. The Owens family that were the keepers at the lighthouse from 1932 to 1952 found rice bowls, plasma bags and Japanaese sandals strewn on the beach for several hundred yards shortly after the end of the war.

Three movies have been filmed at the lighthouse - the movie Treasure in 1982, the Mel Gibson 1992 movie Forever Young and the 2014 movie Need For Speed.

Boats, Boats, Boats

Simple Norwegian Boat Today, Norway has the largest government pension fund in the world. Period. This the result of oil revenue from the discoveries off shore in the 1960's. Norwegians have wisely voted to put away this money for the future in the form of a pension fund.

But it was not always so for typical Norwegians. In fact, at one time Norway was considered among the poorest "developed" nations in the world. Their economy of the past was largely agrarian for their own survival. At the turn of the century, Norway had not much else for transportation than livestock, bicycles, a few motorized cycles and boats. And if you had a sea-worthy vessel, even a simple one, you were considered pretty well off. That was obviously since the majority of the population made their living working on or near the sea. Access to the north and to offshore islands was only by boat. Boats of all sizes made up Norway's past traditions. From rowboats, speedboats, sailboats, ferry boats to larger fishing vessels. Transportation from one side of the fjord to the other was by way of the boat. As a child traveling Norway with my parents I recall ferry boat after ferry boat ride in order to travel along the coastline north from Oslo to my parents home town of Molde. On some trips we would travel inland by way of train instead. These days, the government has invested significantly in transportation infrastructure investing rather in roads and tunnels, not only through granite mountaintops but also under the fjords. Some of the world's longest tunnels are found in Norway. But I digress. . .

This photo of a rowboat in Kristiansund Harbor appealed to me because it not only reflected similar colors to the Norwegian national flag of red, white and blue but also had a hint of a contemporary lime green. It was dusk when I shot this but there was still enough light to capture it without artificial light. The boat is reminiscent of the toil of a typical maritime Norwegian who perhaps relied solely on the fortunes of his boat and the sea for his livelihood.

Photo taken with a Nikon D800, 28-70mm lens at 35mm, set at f/10 (in order to get enough depth of field) and at 1/15th shutter speed with no flash, ISO 250.

South Coast

The South Land

While Risør is not Marseilles, France nor La Spezia, Italy it is in fact a vacation mecca for Norwegians and tourists alike in summer time. The south coast of Norway (referred to as Sørlandet, meaning the regional south land) in the months of June through August is as pleasantly warm and active as any summer vacation destination could be. The seaside southern coast town of Risør is a dry and subtropical climate during summer in Norway. Rain is virtually non-existant during those months and temperatures invite water based activities such as powerboating, sailing, jet skiing, wooden boat festivals along with art and music festivals. In mid-July the only bluegrass music festival in Norway is hosted here. During these summer months the population swells to 20,000 from the year round population of 6,800. The main harbor at Risør is so busy with tourists that boats are forced to anchor offshore or find alternate mooring locations. The town is the fourth largest shipbuilding harbor in Norway including wooden boats, sailboats and commercial vessels of all tonnage. This photo looks down (from a viewpoint above the harbor) on a row of non-powered sailboats moored to the east of the main harbor.