More from this past weekend...

Coin, Iowa

Tarkio, Missouri

Farragut, Iowa

Detours make for good photographs

Fairfax, Missouri

A closed interstate detour is a bit of a peek at what life would be like if those two lane highways I like so much were all that we had to get from one place to another. In a word: crowded. Long waits at stop signs in little towns, people driving 20 miles an hour over the speed limit and making suicide passes around two or three cars at once.. It's safe that I'm glad that most of the highways I love so much are (usually) under-appreciated.

In my attempt to create my own detour, I stumbled across a few photogenic little towns in both Missouri and Iowa. The weather was also much more cooperative than yesterday. I had a much more productive day and now feel like I accomplished enough to make the trip worthwhile. This whole photography thing can be awfully frustrating sometimes.

One town that I passed through, Craig, had a sign proudly proclaiming that the town survived the 1993 floods. Unfortunately, it appears as if the town is on its way to needing to survive yet another one.

Craig, Missouri

Fremont County, Iowa

Also visited: Tarkio, Missouri. Riverton, Farragut and Sidney, Iowa.

Wanderin'

I set out today with out much of an aim and ended up in St. Joseph, Missouri. With all the flooding along the Missouri River, it's not exactly easy to get from Omaha to here. In fact, there isn't an open bridge across the river between Omaha and St. Joseph at the moment. Unfortunately, as I type this from a hotel room, there's a huge storm making its way through Omaha and southeast Nebraska into Iowa and Missouri. Rain is the last thing that the area needs at the moment.

It's only fitting that the weather didn't cooperate much at all today in a photographic sense. At first, everything was a uniform gray, but as the afternoon went on, the sun would appear and then disappear frequently. Without the sun illuminating the ground, the sky was much too bright to work with. And every time I tried to wait it out, the sun wouldn't peek through until I was back in the car and ready to move on.

The first photograph was taken just to the south of College Springs, Iowa. The second, of an old steel bridge over the swollen West Nishnabotna River, was taken between Malvern and Randolph, Iowa.

Also visited: Treynor, Silver City, Imogene, Shenandoah, Coin, Blanchard, Shambaugh and Braddyville, Iowa. Burlington Junction, Maryville, Bolckow, Rosendale, Rea, Whitesville, King City, Union Star, Helena, Rochester and Savannah, Missouri.

June

It's hard to believe June is already two-thirds over. Time has a way of really getting away from me.

I'm still at work photographing South Omaha. So far, it has been a bit of a struggle for me. The first camera had a wonky shutter and I keep forgetting to set the dial back to aperture priority on the second one. It's unbelievably frustrating to look down and suddenly realize you've shot half a roll of film at 1/60th of a second. Rather than admit defeat, I say a few impolite words in my head and go right back at it. I'm also finding the small area I've chosen to focus on to be more restrictive than I had imagined. In most cases, I just set out in the car and go for hours. This subject requires more thought and depth, more time spent walking and searching.

A few days ago, a friend asked me why I'm continuing to attempt something that I find to be so frustrating. I find that I need to work in a different way and develop new skills, no matter how much I want to go back to what I know best. It's the only way I can get better and evolve as an artist. So I press on.

I am sending four rolls of film off to Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas tomorrow. New photographs soon, U.S. Mail and old Minolta camera willing.

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Also, don't forget that I'm posting three images of Nebraska to my Flickr account every day this month. I've enjoyed going back through all the images from ninety-three for what feels like the thousandth time. There's always something new to be found...

www.flickr.com/photos/josephvavak

Including the photograph of the sandhills and sky of Arthur County, Nebraska that is now on the front page of my website.

www.josephvavak.com

The other half...

I recently began posting photographs on a Flickr page, hoping to reach new people and join a wider community of photographers. I will be updating the page on a regular basis, so stop by periodically and see what's going on. There is a new Untitled series already posted that hasn't appeared on my website yet.

Over the next month, I will be displaying a second set of images of Nebraska. Entitled ninety-three and a half, the series features another 93 images that didn't make the cut for the finished product. I love many of these photographs as much as anything I've ever done, and I discovered many new images I hadn't given a second thought since the early days of my travels. There will be three photographs posted (most) every day in the month of June.

Without further adieu..

www.flickr.com/photos/josephvavak