Juniper for a Day

I love falling asleep to the smell of juniper.  Especially that intense presence you experience when you’ve been away from it for awhile and your body relaxes as you drift away into a deep sleep.  Last weekend Ann and I decided we needed to get out to photograph and, after a week of ever-changing weather forecasts had us continually recalculating where we could go to escape the rain, we wound up at one of our favorite places, nodding off to the fragrance of juniper - the Painted Hills.  We may have stayed there only for one night, but it gave us an incredible morning of photography!

Most people would think that waking up to an overcast morning, especially in a place as beautiful as the Painted Hills, would leave one disappointed with thoughts of the images that might have been.  But not at the Painted Hills.  Our frequent visits have given us a certain familiarity of place, and we’ve learned that her gifts are endless.  But only if you’re receptive enough to accept them and don’t try to force them to be what they are not.  

I’d decided to continue with the square format constraint from our recent Japanese Gardens trip, but to photograph in color because, well, the colors and quality of light was mesmerizing!  I did, however, consistently press for a simplicity of form and imagery, which pushed my image-making beyond my first impressions and filled the morning with a sense of exploration.  

We were out before sunrise and were able to take advantage of that wonderful, pre-dawn light.  The skies still had some texture in the clouds, but off in the distance we could see the heavier cloud cover we were expecting that day slowly making its way towards us.  We weren’t very far into the Painted Hills, entering from our back-entrance campsite, before Ann said, “Hey, can we stop here?”  I pulled over and we pulled out our gear.

As I noted above, I was intentionally trying to make compositions that had very clean and simple forms, leaving it to the textures inherent in the landscape to add complexity to the image as well as material for the eye to roam.

Often that meant framing the subject closer and closer, although not quite at the level of one of my abstract compositions.  Still, sometimes that meant photographing from 10 feet away.

Other times, that approach meant putting on a long lens and taking the same approach to a subject a hundred yards long and a quarter-mile away.

After photographing along one small stretch of road, we headed up to the main viewing area, again turning away from the main hills to look towards the West and the grassier areas.

My thoughts returned to the S-curve and cluster of trees that I’ve photographed so many times before in so many different ways.  This time, the square format allowed me to really focus in and emphasize the curve and the trees it connects.  The grasses, again, adding texture to the image.

I then turned towards the hill features just to the right of the S-curve, to an area where a whole mixture of land textures and colors collide.  The square format and the constant pressing to focus tighter and tighter gave me distinctly different images that were literally adjacent to each other.

The bush on the bottom right of the image above, is the same bush that’s on the bottom left of this image.  Yet the framing of the two images happened only after I’d explored several other compositions and then settled on the image below.

I don’t really know what more to say about these images other than they are experiments of form, lines, colors and textures.  And to say that all of these images were made from an area on a hillside not more than 50 feet long.

I eventually moved southward a bit onto the grassy plateau we’ve photographed from before.  I spent quite a bit of time there, again experimenting with my constraints.  That may be the subject of its own post, but for now, I’ll leave you with what I think is one of the stronger of those images.  At one level, it’s a very simple image, but the type of image that I enjoy.  The more you look at it, the more you see and the more the complexity of the landscape begins to reveal.  Much like the Painted Hills - there is the easy eye candy, but also much more if you take the time and are attentive.

After a long morning of photographing Ann and I were ready for breakfast, so we headed down to the picnic area by the entrance.  On the drive into the area though, Ann and I saw another potential image, so breakfast had to wait a bit.

After breakfast, a new pot of coffee and the usual chatting with people who came over to inquire about Beast, Ann and I decided to set about exploring.  The overcast had become rather even and we decided to see what else we could find.  I recalled a BLM road off the road leading to the Painted Hills and we agreed to check that area first, then head down towards the John Day River.

We didn’t make it too far on the main road before we pulled over for an image.  One of the things Joe Cornish and Charlie Waite photograph a lot is what they call the working landscape.  Neither of them have any problems with photographs that include agricultural fields, dwellings, barns, etc. (ok, so they’re photographing a lot in England, Italy and Spain . . . so things are quite attractive anyway).  So here I tried my hand at the worked landscape as well.  Ann was  game too and she made several images that afternoon that included worked fields.

We’d driven this main road every time we’ve come to the Painted Hills and several times said we should stop along the way.  Well this was that time.  It seemed like every mile or two we’d stop again for another image.  Sometimes the timing wasn’t quite right, particularly with the light, but there was still an image to make and to learn from.  So I kept making images.

And sometimes the image making was simply for exploration, to see how I could interpret an interesting feature in the landscape.

We finally made it to our turnoff and headed up a dirt road in 4 wheel drive.  Most of it was easy, but there were a couple of steep spots, and a narrow spot that ran along a gully that drained the isolated valley.

I saw a lovely feature of a curved ridge that seemed to form a bowl, but by the time I stopped Beast, got out and tried to make an image, the light was gone and all sense of depth in the image was lost.  I climbed on top of Beast to see if that made a difference, but nope.  However, the climb up gave me a different photograph - that of the gully that we followed for a bit, and the cows that seemed ubiquitous on the BLM land ever since we made our first stop after leaving the Painted Hills.

While the cows let you know you aren’t in the middle of nowhere, it was great to drive several miles into and out of a couple of canyons and to have nobody else around.  Being surrounded by hills like this all by yourself makes you realize how small we really are.  

After our exploration into the hidden valley, we set off towards the John Day River, passing the entrance to the Painted Hills and transitioning from pavement to gravel, and then dirt.  On the way towards the John Day River Ann asked me to stop at an interesting feature.  As Ann made her photographs, I continued with mine.  At this location I also made the image of the grasses and riparian trees that was the last image in the recent Why Study the Masters post.

We kept driving onward and, as we approached the John Day river we rounded a bend to start the descent towards the river.  The view opened onto a lovely farm field on this side of the river, and this wall on the other.

We stopped to photograph about half way down the descent.  I was struck by how immense the wall was, and how it must feel to drift past it on a boat.  I focused on the wall, while Ann embraced the landscape.  Hers is the only image that gives you a feel for its size.

Having looked at our handy Benchmark Maps Oregon Gazette, I knew that the road we were on was, in fact, a real road that led to somewhere (unlike the Talking Head’s “We’re on a road to nowhere . . . .”).  In fact, I knew where it would lead, if we made the right turn.  “Hey, Hon.  You want to drive up to Rajneeshpuram and check it out?”  Ann’s immediate response - “Sure!”  That’s one of the things I love about Ann, pretty much game for anything as long as it doesn’t involve heights or spiders.  

We were on Gosner Road.  Our gazette shows it as a dark red, thick, hatch-mark that the map says is an “unpaved road.”  (light red, thick, hatch-mark is “four-wheel drive road”).  That’s the good news.  The bad news were the boxes that lined the route.  They included comments like “Not recommended for motorhomes and trailers.” and “Roads may be impassible when wet.”  I put Beast into 4WD and headed down the road because, hey, isn’t that why we got her?

I’ll cut to the chase early and let you know, we never made it to Rajneeshpuram.  I had only one turn to make and I think I know where I missed it.  At one point, a barn appeared smack dab in the middle of the road at one point.  At least visually it looked like that and the road jogged to the left of it.  I think I missed a road off to the right of the barn.  It looked like it went into the barn yard but it have been a road.  Why did I miss it?  Well, I was busy reading the sign that pretty much went like this:

“This farm owns the next 6.5 miles of property.

Do not stop.

Do not trespass.

Do not take trailers or RVs on this road.

Do not take road unless you have 4WD.

Rough and difficult road ahead.

No services ahead.”

The sign must have been 3’ wide by 4’ high.

They didn’t have to tell me I wasn’t wanted.  Fine!  That sign was daring me to take the road so, of course I had to go down it.  So I went left when I should have gone right.  Don’t tell me I can’t take a public road!  Don’t tell me I can’t stop on it either!

So we didn’t make it to Rajnesshpuram, having gone west when we should have gone north.  But we saw some incredible landscapes nonetheless.  And while most of it was farm/range land and private property (as well as posted) it was beautiful.  We did no more than take the occasional iPhone photograph from the inside of Beast, but that was more because we knew we needed to come back.

There was a real variety from intimate valleys, to climbs up mountain sides, to lovely plateaus like the one above.

In all, we drove about 30 miles on dirt track, crossing a few creeks, on roads probably traveled mostly by tractor.  If you look at the map below, it’s the part that’s in red.  We hit paved country roads in Ashwood (green), and then major state highways a bit farther west (blue).

We’ve decided that we need to plan more trips that run through the Oregon backcountry so we can simply explore the state.  With a bit of planning, we can probably figure out where we can camp along the way because the mile after mile of no trespassing signs is a pretty good indicator that you’re not welcome to pull off the side of the road and call it a day.  

Given we were now a few hours away from the Painted Hills, we started heading back home.  We could have found a place to camp for the night, but the clouds were looking testy and the forecast for rain hadn’t changed, so we called it a trip!

Not bad for a 24 hour excursion.  Spend the night enveloped in juniper, spend a wonderful day photographing, take some time to go exploring and come up with a new way to get out and have adventures!!!  I’d call that a success!