I popped this 2008 photo of a ranch gate in Harney County — that’s Oregon’s high-desert cowboy country, east of the Cascades — out of a frame to rotate in another photo this morning. Then I realized I had never put it on the website.

The picture was taken on a very cold day at Roaring Springs Ranch, south of Frenchglen.  It is very, very lightly colored, so that in some light it still looks black and white. Look closer, though, and you find subtle hints of winter color.

photo: Harney gate, 2008

Here’s a quick flash-blur shot in the woods taken on the Pentax 645. It’s not stunning, but I really like the way the vines creeping up the front of the tree to the right were outlined in shadow. That’s an effect I keep working to replicate, not always successfully.

Again, one to be colored and reposted.

Here’s the trail that leads up to the well behind our house; I shot it yesterday on the Pentax 645 and printed this morning while listening to Dick Dale & the Deltones’ Greatest Hits on the stereo in the darkroom.

The light in the Oregon woods is splendid at times, with the cloudy sunlight filtering through the trees like a the glow from a giant soft box.

I’ll re-post the image once I have done a hand colored print of it.

But the old, original, manual focus Pentax 645 is still a wonderful camera. I spent a while this afternoon out in the woods with camera, 150/3.5 lens, a monopod and a roll of Tri-X. (What else is required for happiness?)

The viewfinder is extraordinary: Huge and clear. And, with the monopod, the camera feels like an extension of your own body.

I ran the film this afternoon. Prints in the morning.

More fun this afternoon with the P645 300/4, together with the 1.4x.

photo: Towhee, 2009