EPHRATA — Since moving back to the Pacific Northwest, my wife and I have rekindled our love of photography and have regularly made it a point to go on various adventures in and around the Columbia Basin to play with our cameras and explore. 

The three trips below are easy day trips that have become some of our favorites. Each can be done in a day and offers a variety of stops to take in scenery, eat some good food and enjoy the natural beauty of Central Washington. 

White Pass Scenic Byway

Travel to Yakima and take State Route 12 west, then swing a left just past Naches, you’ll find yourself on the White Pass Scenic Byway.

Near the start of the Byway are several opportunities to get out of the car, sling a camera or pair of binoculars over your shoulder and enjoy nature. The Oak Creek Big Horn Sheep Feeding Station, Water Works Canyon Trailhead and Oak Creek Wildlife Area are all right there.

Along the byway, SR 12 follows the Tieton River and passes by Rimrock Lake, Dog Lake, Leech Lake and Knuppenburg Lake. Clear Lake is a short drive off the highway and offers a great chance for hiking and photography as well.

If photography isn’t your thing, there are also plenty of places for camping for those not in a rush to get home. Fishing spots along the Tieton River and at all the lakes are plentiful as well. 

On day trips, my wife and I have found ourselves ending the day in the small town of Packwood, a little way past the White Pass Ski Area. The food is good and includes gluten-free options, and children can work off energy at the arcade most days unless the arcade/party room is booked. 

Whether you’re going to or returning, there are several scenic overlooks of the Cascades, including Mount Rainier National Park as you travel SR 12. 

Just pass the tunnel by Tieton Dam, there is a turnoff for the Tieton Dam Historical Marker along with several other places to turn off to appreciate the view with an overlook of Rimrock Lake. The Clear Creek Falls Overlook, Mount Rainier Goat Rocks observation site, Lava Falls viewpoint, Palisades viewpoint and several campgrounds all offer places to stop and enjoy nature. Some may require a Discover Pass, so pay attention to the signage at each location. 

Trailheads for those who want to do a bit of hiking are plentiful along the White Pass Scenic Byway. The Tieton Nature Trail has multiple access points along the start of the byway. Bear Canyon Trailhead, the Willows, Hause Creek and Indian Creek campgrounds, Sand Ridge Trailhead, Dog Lake Campground and Pacific Crest Trail — White Pass North Trailhead all offer hiking opportunities right off the road. 

U.S. Hwy. 2

If you leave Ephrata heading northwest on Sagebrush Flats Road, you’ll see a bit of the Columbia Basin that most people skip by going north on State Route 17 through Soap Lake. 

Along the way there are various coulees and plenty of places to pull over to get photos and take in the view. The area surrounding Moses Coulee and Beezley Hills Preserves is particularly pretty and offers opportunities to get photos of rock formations and waterfalls along the cliff faces in the area. 

Swing left once you get to U.S. 2 and the highway will take you into a patchwork of farmland. The crops in the area are pretty, but wintertime is when this portion of the trip really shines — literally. When the fields are covered with snow, travelers can see the foothills of the Cascades roughly from Entiat to Sunnyslope along the Columbia River. Birds of prey and a variety of wildlife will sometimes show their faces. 

Waterville lies along U.S. 2 and offers some classic architecture to take photos of, including the Douglas County Courthouse at the intersection of South Rainier and East Walnut streets. Small boutiques and restaurants offer a chance for a break from driving and taking photos.

One of the most beautiful parts of this trip is the downhill drive to get through Corbaley Canyon above Orondo. The hills in wintertime are covered with snow, but during the spring and summer are green and you can often find deer and other wildlife along the hills if you look for them. The hill ends by the Martin Family Orchards, a local business that can be a fun stop. 

The return trip routes travelers through East Wenatchee, which can double up as an opportunity to get some shopping done along the way home.

    A bit of fog peeks through the trees and shrouds mountaintops in the Cascades along the White Pass Scenic Byway. Multiple trailheads and places to pull over and enjoy the scenery make the route particularly appealing to those who enjoy watching wildlife or using a camera.
  

    Just above the Rimrock Dam are several places where people can pull off and enjoy the view of the mountains from a high altitude.
  

    A winter view of the fields before entering Waterville while traveling from east to west on U.S. Hwy. 2. Along the way, it is common to see various raptors hunting while flying over the fields during winter or summer.
  

    A waterfall in the Moses Coulee area north of Ephrata. The waterfall pours over some of the Columbia Basin’s well-known basalt rock formations.
  

The 2024 Audubon Photography Awards jury has revealed the winners of this year’s competition. These breathtaking entries were chosen from over 8,500 anonymous submissions. Take a glance at the prize-winning images across seven categories: Amateur, Professional, Youth, Grand, Plants for Birds, Fisher, and Birds in Landscapes.

Grand Prize Winner

The backstory: While out for a walk, photographer Mathew Malwitz had been following the song of a Magnolia Warbler along a trail when two quarrelling Blackburnian Warblers dropped from the trees above. They landed a few feet in front of me, prompting me to carefully step back. They remained motionless, and he worried that the fall had injured them, but a moment later they began battling again. Once Malwitz realised the pair were too busy to notice him, he slowly dropped to the ground at their level to get a better look into their world. He adjusted his settings for action and snapped as they fought. The scene lasted a few minutes before they let each other go and returned to the canopy.

What the Judge (Daniel Dietrich) said: “This photo incorporates so much of what we all hope for in a spectacular image. The photographer had the knowledge to get very low to create a foreground and background that perfectly highlights the subject. The intense action is captured perfectly as the two animals grasp at each other’s beaks. The symmetry of the wing position and color of the birds are brilliant.”

Professional Award

Amateur Award

Plants for Birds

Youth Award

Female Bird Prize

Birds in Landscapes

Fisher Prize

Artists can be a funny bunch, pushing themselves to extremes to find meaning, and bending concepts to their will. 

One such artist is Finnish photographer Tatu Gustafsson, who is about to finish a residency at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland. 

He graduated from the Turku Arts Academy in 2012, and since then he has been led by art in various different directions. 

This includes eccentricities such as living in a house that has no handles, existing without a phone or shoes, and traveling around Finland making self-portraits by being captured on weather and traffic cameras. 

Over a four year period, Gustafsson explored his native country, eerily posing in front of roadside cameras, capturing sinister, Blair Witch type images in various different locations. 

The project was born out of Gustafsson’s insecurities with traditional portraiture, telling Lithuanian website Bored Panda:

“I had just graduated from Turku Arts Academy in 2012, and I was in a situation where I had to look back on what I had done and decide if I wanted to continue in the same direction or start something different. 

“I never felt like I had the ability to make well-composed and beautiful pictures, so I thought that I wanted to do something that is more conceptual. I had seen one of the weather camera pictures somewhere and I thought that those are really interesting but maybe I could add something into them.”

He added that the project was inspired by a dislike of the control a photographer has when he or she is taking a picture, and a desire to let go of that control.

Gustafsson spent one week, every month, for four years living in his car, travelling around Finland to gather the shots, and the automated weather cameras served as the perfect tool for his project.

Every 12 minutes, over 700 roadside cameras all over Finland capture photos of their surroundings, which are then uploaded to the public Finnish Transport Agency website, where they are available for 24 hours.

Many of you will not be alone in feeling that this project has an air of pretension, however, speaking to The Creators Project, Gustafsson said:

“I have tried to find a way to make art that is democratic in the sense that everyone could do it,” adding that he is still looking for “a way to do an art piece that doesn’t need money or skill.”

More of Gustafsson’s work can be seen on his Instagram page.

If you prefer the more traditional way of taking a portrait, take a look at our guide to the best cameras for portraits. 

We’ve also put together guides to the best cameras for beginners, and the best cameras for professionals. 

Whether you want a keepsake of a trip to the region, want to document your favourite lookout spot, or need photos for your local business, Kawartha Kaptures Photography does exactly what its name suggests: captures the essence of the Kawarthas.

Through her business, Ennismore photographer Linda Kassil combines her three greatest passions: her camera, nature, and her home in the Kawarthas.

Though an avid hiker and adventurer who picked up photography from a young age, Kassil had no intention of turning the hobby into a professional business until she retired and moved to Chemong Lake. There, with more time on her hands and more time spent in nature, she was encouraged by friends to sell her photos.

Today, Kawartha Kaptures Photography offers a collection of services to help customers preserve their own memories of the Kawarthas. Available as canvas prints, framed photos, and greeting cards, Kassil’s photos explore nature through waterscapes, landscapes, wildlife, plant life, and more.

Have a special spot in the Kawarthas or want to capture the exact view from your cottage dock? Kassil can be booked for custom photo shoots to give customers a one-of-a-kind memory of their favourite places.

Kassil also offers product photography services for small local businesses such as garden centres, and can be booked for photo shoots for rental properties across the Kawarthas.

“Photos are the first thing that people look at when they want to book a rental property and if they don’t like what they see, they’re going to move on,” Kassil says. “You want photos that really show off the beauty of the property.”

Photo shoots can be booked by the hour, or can be done in exchange for a night spent in the accommodation. The latter will give Kassil the chance to capture the property at all times of the day, optimizing the lighting and maybe even capturing the local wildlife. As part of the service, Kassil will post the photos and a review of her favourite aspects of the rental to her social media channels, which will help the listing reach a larger audience.

From July 2 to 31 at The Nutty Bean Café in Lakefield, you can browse and buy a range of Kawartha Kaptures Photography’s summer-themed canvas and framed photos.

Visit kawarthakapturesphotography.myportfolio.com to browse a gallery of photos for sale, and follow Kawartha Kaptures Photography on Instagram and Facebook to see more of Kassil’s work. She can be reached at 905-220-6193 or kawarthakaptures.photography@gmail.com.

Know Your Locals™ is a branded editorial feature about locally owned independent businesses and locally operated organizations, and supported by them. If your business or organization is interested in being featured in a future “Know Your Locals” branded editorial, contact Jeannine Taylor at 705-742-6404 or jt@kawarthanow.com or visit our Advertise with kawarthaNOW page.

On the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, the sun rises in perfect alignment with the Heel Stone and Altar Stone of Stonehenge’s 5,000-year-old circle

Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

In her white shoes, New York-born Nona Faustine walks around her home city. She is visiting once blameless sites – from Prospect Park, to Harlem and Wall Street – which later left legacies of enslavement, horror and resilience.

Faustine has taken more than 40 self-portraits at these sites, currently on show at Brooklyn Museum. Often naked, both vulnerable and powerful, she frames herself against Lower Manhattan’s African Burial Ground or against the slave-owning sites in Brooklyn, in photographs frequently captured by her sister in the early morning, or at weekends when the city is quiet. In her white shoes, the links to colonialism and assimilation are stark in every image.

Titled White Shoes, the series and eponymous exhibition, ‘capture the historical amnesia of New York City, a city much like the rest of the country that has not fully reckoned with its past,’ says Faustine. ‘I am a conduit travelling through space and time, in solidarity with people whose names and memories have been lost but are embedded in the land.’

‘Nona’s presence throughout the White Shoes series centres the project on the experiential engagement of a Black woman artist living in 21st-century New York City,’ says Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art. ‘The White Shoes project is a lesson in history (including a lesson about how history is taught, or not taught); it is also a personal rumination on landscape as both an art historical trope and as a site of complex encounters (with places that typically do not share their secrets), and finally, it is a personal exploration on the part of an artist who is brave enough to unapologetically insert her (often nude) body into an indefatigable contemporary city in order to talk about the effects of the past.’

Morris adds: ‘I think Faustine’s use of narrative in the series is actually complex because, while White Shoes is obviously a series and is largely laid out chronologically, the artist has very carefully conceived each photograph as an individual work of art. Each work tells a story about the history of enslavement in the greater New York area. Each photograph stands as a record and as a contemporary acknowledgement of a story that may no longer be visible, or was long hidden, but that has played a part in making the city today what it is. In addition, there is no [single] overall narrative; Faustine has laid the [photographs] out in a specific order, but the viewer can enter the narrative at any given image and follow their own path of interest through the whole.’

‘Nona Faustine: White Shoes’ until 7 July 2024 at Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 4th Floor, at Brooklyn Museum

brooklynmuseum.org

Check our round-up for more New York art exhibitions to see this summer