Gaol

I was doing some drone work north of Bismarck-Mandan and found myself heading past Regan as the sun began to set. Naturally I popped in for a visit to the old jail, since I’ve always found this little building interesting. Besides, this is the best lighting condition I think I’ve ever had for a brief photo visit!

Roadside attraction

As with most of my hundreds of thousands of photos, I can tell you exactly where I was when this was taken. In order to prove it to myself, I called up The Google and found it on Maps in around ten seconds. It’s northwest of Watford City just a little ways. I was up there for a Cross Country tournament, and then I went roaming after the main event. I got some great photos along the way, too.

I didn’t even have to get out of the truck for this one: I just pointed my camera out of the window and got it. I was on a mission to a spot I’d targeted in advance, as I typically do on these trips, so I didn’t waste any time capturing this old house and moving on.

Hazy shade of morning

On a recent photo trip I was able to camp out at the beautiful Graham’s Island State Park, which I highly recommend, and then roam the area. The first thing I spotted in the morning was this farm. You can see how hazy the skies were from all that Canadian and Pacific Northwest wildfire smoke. This was a month ago, and much of the summer has been the same.

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Cleaning the undercarriage

This old house is one of the few remaining parts of the ghost town of Trotters, which was one of the Bucket List destinations I finally reached this summer. You aren’t likely to find this house without The Google or a drone, however. It’s visible for an instant as you head up the highway, but it’s easy to miss. I’d surveyed the area from above before heading out here, though, and assessed whether it was accessible once I got there. But there was something I hadn’t counted on.

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Old MHS Open House, Part Seven of Many

I’ve mentioned before that I never intended to photograph or write a “tour of ol’ Mandan High”, and I have not. In fact, for a good portion of my wanderings I put my 100mm macro lens on the camera! Instead, I opted to find and capture interesting sights in my alma mater. Like this photo, for example: it makes a clever play on the Mandan slogan, “Where the west begins.” I like it.

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LIFO

If you’re a computer programmer or an accountant, you understand the title: Last In, First Out. This is probably the last autumn photo I’ll get this year, as the high winds which rolled in Wednesday morning are ripping the leaves off the trees as I type this.

Oddly enough, this year may be my best year for fall photos…ever. At least, so far. I’ve got a ton to post, and I’ll be trickling them out for a bit in the near future, but for now I just wanted to get this one out. It was a surprise I can’t believe I’ve never seen before, and I’m glad I got it…even with a cell phone. Not as good as my actual camera, but still a really nice shot.

Frost ahead

It helps to know your way around Bismarck, paying attention to street names.

When we had a few days of spectacular frost (or Rime Ice, if you want to get technical) I was actually able to break away for a little bit and get my camera out!

I probably had my camera out of the bag more over the course of these four days than I did in all of 2020, so I’m pretty stoked to be able to present 109 edited photos of this phenomenon! And I’m going to continue to call it frost. The purists out there will have to concede that the difference between the two is in its formation, but the end result is the same: beauty.