This is from this month’s trip to Pendleton. The city has a very interesting, and occasionally scandalous, history, which is evident in the names of some of the establishments. In the early 1900’s, Pendleton was a hub for military, farm, and railroad work, and had a thriving Chinese underground, and a brothel culture a couple floors up. It must have been an intereting place to live if you liked opium and syphilis.

I drove to Pendleton to reshoot some photographs that I took in 2013.  Back then, I shot only film, and processed everything but the color negatives in my home darkroom.  Something went wrong when I processed the negatives from that trip, and they turned out splotchy, and most of them were not usable.  It was a huge disappointment.  If you read my blog, you will know that I have no darkroom at this time.

I traveled lighter this time, bringing one 4×5 camera, my Hasselblad, and two Nikon digitals.  These days, I bring out the digitals first.  I use them to get a quick version of the picture.  Then I use the display on the camera to decide if the scene warrants getting out the film cameras, which I reserve for the best pictures.

One of the things that hurt my photography on the previous trip was the wind.  Coming from the west at roughly a begillion miles per hour, the wind made tripod work mostly impossible, because I couldn’t let go of said tripod.  I mostly hand-held my Speed Graphic, and leaned into the wind (avoiding incoming tumbleweeds, cows, and small cars swept up in the gales), and shot everything with a high shutter speed while my fingers rapidly lost feeling.  This time, the wind was much calmer, and the weather was mild.  The sun was shining through high clouds for most of the day, and as evening approached, the shadows crept along the hotels, and storefronts in the downtown.  All in all, it was a good day.

Thank you for reading.