Wheat 2014
I am not home anymore but on a photo shoot.
Uneventful flight to Spokane yesterday, through Minneapolis. Picked up Budget rental and drove to Colfax, Washington where I'll be for three days.
Where am I? In the heart of the Palouse, the wheat, lentil, barley area in eastern Washington I've photographed in for almost twenty years.
Take a look at:
I missed last year as I was in Iceland.
Early July the wheat crop is about mid thigh level, high enough to be blown in the wind but not so high that it can't support its own weight.
I am apt to hyperbole about this place but it truly is spectacularly beautiful. Put it on your list of must see places. Not touristy and not flashy, no five star Michelin hotels, food that's nothing to write home about, but simply the best place I know.
Tomorrow I will shoot aerials for an hour or so in the early morning. A first is that I will fly in a Cessna 206. This is a bigger plane than I've flown in before and two side doors will be removed for the flight. Can't wait.Related series
Wheat: An American Series
Currently out of print
In this beautiful book Rantoul has chosen some of the best photographs made over a 15 year period from the area of Washington State called “ The Palouse”. Using photographs made in the air and on the ground, the book has photographs made in the growing season in early summer and those made at harvest in early September.
Wheat, Washington 2010
I have been photographing in this southeastern corner of Washington for over fifteen years. The area, called “The Palouse” is hundreds of square miles of wheat, lentils, safflower. etc. I first began making pictures here in black and white 8 x 10 in the 90’s, then added color in 2000, beginning to work aerially about the same time and now make all my pictures digitally. I also return in different seasons as the landscape changes drastically depending on what stage the crops are in. As there is so much work from this area, we have chosen to show work from several different trips or shoots and to change them out from time to time. The group shown here is from a trip I made in August 2010.
Wheat, Washington 2009
These photographs were made on a trip to the Palouse area in Washington in June 2009.
The area is at its greenest then.
I have been photographing in the region every year since 1996. Since about 2006 I have been combining the work made on the ground with aerial work.
Wheat, Washington 2011
This is the third of the bodies of work from the southeastern corner of the state of Washington called "The Palouse" represented on the website. As I write this now in August, 2012 I am working on a new group from a trip made in late July.
The photographs from this 2011 trip were made in mid May, a very different time in the region. It is very early in the growing season and the crops are either just showing bright green or are still turned under from the previous winter and are bare. There are also some fields that are the stubble remaining from the previous harvest in the fall.
As usual, I stayed about a week and photographed from the air as well as on the ground.
We will post the new 2012 wheat field pictures soon.
