Yee haw

Some horses get frustrated. During the ACTHA's trail ride on June 13, riders had to take their horses through obstacles. There were some the horses didn't want to do. This one didn't want to stay in the wooden square and turn around. I happened to get the clip when she threw her head up in the air to say 'no!' I think horses are interesting in the way they assert their personalities.

Bright colors

This is from a shawl making class I went to at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts. The teaching artist, Wendy Red Star, quilted star designs for all the shawls. They were such great explosions of color, I loved them.

Inside the GEM

I visited the GEM theater in Athena on Friday. Local citizens are working to rebuild this old movie theater that operated between 1909 and 1968.

In the theater room they have taken out all the old seats. These seats here are from the balcony. A floodlight filled the room with an amber glow.

It's always neat to see a work in progress.

Bunchgrass

This is a photo of wet bunchgrass near the former site of Frenchtown. Bunchgrass like this used to cover the rolling hills in Eastern Oregon. It was great to feed horses, historian Sam Pambrun told me.

For the love of trains

I rode on a brief train ride with Union Pacific Railroad on Monday. On it I met Bailee Rogers, a five-year-old who was oh-so-excited to ride a train for the first time. Not surprisingly, I featured her in today's story about the event. This was a photo that didn't really work for the paper, but shows how much fun she had.

This was a shot I took after getting off the train. I was down on the platform and these kids were peeking through the dome windows on the upper level. Though the train looks a bit like a space ship from this angle, I still liked the little faces looking out.

Summer arrives

Summer has officially began.

I have a backlog of photos I want to post from stories I've written lately. This is one from more than a week ago, when two ladies (and a lad) let me accompany them on a trail ride at Tollgate.

I had some fun playing with the black level and turning this one to sepia. Cowboys and cowgirls always look good with old-time coloring.

New beginnings

I had my first official 'photo assignment' this weekend. I was working to only take photos, not write a story. It was at the Pendleton High School graduation ceremony.

Not knowing what would and wouldn't turn out in the dark convention center, I took a ton of photos. This was one of the spring choir members, silhouetted from behind. I knew it wouldn't work as a news photo, but thought it turned out well anyway.

Just a note: I'm still a reporter, this was just a neat foray into another way of approaching a story.