2025 E. Washington Road Trip 05 - Farms and Basalt Country in B&W

The big open country of Eastern Washington invites black and white photography. It is a relatively new photographic terrain for me, although long-term readers may remember that I took a September 2024 trip to eastern Washington. Here are some scenes from my 2025 trip.

Spokane 

Centennial Mill (50mm ƒ/1.8 Canon lens, dark yellow filter, 1/125 ƒ/8)

This immense concrete monolith is the former Centennial Mills on East Trent Avenue, built in 1940. After several mergers, Centennial became part of part of the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) corporation. The mill is now unused. It dominates the skyline east of downtown. What a view you would have from that tower.

Reardan

Reardan (50mm ƒ/1.8 Canon lens, dark yellow filter)

Here are more of the silos that dot the skyline throughout eastern Washington. Most now are made of concrete or steel. The wood silos from the early 20th century have mostly succumbed to fire. 

Davenport

Farm off Rte. 2, Davenport (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, dark yellow filter, 1/125 ƒ/5.6)

Davenport is in open farm country. This farm still had a traditional wood barn with shingle roof. But many farms now have modern steel buildings, which I find are not nearly as picturesque.

 

Grand Coulee

Midway Avenue, Grand Coulee (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, 1/250 ƒ/8)

Beer store, Coulee Boulevard, Electric City (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens)

The towns near Grand Coulee still have a bit of company town appearance. The dam certainly is a monumental engineering achievement. 

Ancient Lakes 

The Ancient Lakes occupy one of the huge coulees created during the great floods. They are near Quincy, Washington, just east of the Columbia River. The trails are easy to walk. As you enter the valley from the west, the basalt cliffs loom over you. The coulee feels lonely and remote, although the surrounding plateau is farmland and vineyard.

Basalt boulder that tumbled from the nearby cliff, Ancient Lakes Trail (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, yellow-green filter)

Ancient Lakes Trail, near Quincy, Washington (Canon 50mm ƒ/1,8 lens, med. yellow filter)

Basalt columns near Deep Lake, Dry Falls State Park

Mabton

Grain silos, Rte 22, Mabton (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, orange filter, 1/250 ƒ/5.6)

This ends our short tour through eastern Washington in farm and basalt country. I took these pictures on Kodak T400CN film. The film was expired, and Photoland at The Evergreen State College grossly underdeveloped it. Therefore, some of the frames do not have the full tonal range and are grainy. I like C-41 film because the ICE tool in my Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner can clean up most scratches and chemical blobs. But for 35mm film, I will return to using fresh black and white film (such as Tri-X or Acros).

Technical Note

I took most of these photographs with my 1960s Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 Leica thread-mount lens. This is a nice example of 1960s Japanese optical and mechanical excellence. The one had intact coating (rare) and no internal haze (even more rare). When I bought it, the seller disclosed some fungus. Don Goldberg (DAG Camera) cleaned it and reported that it was intact. Unfortunately, many (most?) of these 1.8s are ruined. Some lubricant internally outgassed and etched/hazed the inner elements permanently. Such a pity. The Canon ƒ/1.4 thread mount lenses seem to have survived in better condition. 

Inexpensive Gem: My $13.50 Canonet GIII QL17 Camera (Oly 18)

Long-term readers know that I periodically suffer from uncontrollable episodes of GAS. That is Gear Acquisition Syndrome, an ailment that most photographers suffer. 

Well-used Canonet G-III QL17 camera

Background

I have been bicycling more, and with the approach of dry spring weather, a compact bicycle camera might be handy. A logical choice is one of the compact rangefinder cameras from the 1970s and 1980s. But which model? The Japanese companies made millions of these cameras. But many have succumbed to age, fungus, moisture, corroded batteries, or gummed up lubricants. They were designed as mid-range consumer products, and it is amazing that so many are still functional 50 years later. 

The best summary of compact rangefinder cameras is on Steve Gandy's Cameraquest site. PetaPixel presented a summary of the Canonet models. 

I have limited experience with compact cameras:

• Some four decades ago, I used a Rollei 35S with an excellent 40mm ƒ/2.8 Sonnar lens. Why did I sell it? 
• About 20 years ago, I had a Canon Canonet QL19 camera, which took superb Kodachrome slides. But I sold it in the foolish days when I thought I would switch to digital. 
• For a few years, I used a Yashica Electro 35CC, but it failed via the infamous "pad of death." 
• My Olympus Trip 35 developed a lens alignment issue, so off it went. 
• My Voigtländer Vito BL is compact but has small fonts on the controls and a squinty viewfinder. Optically, its lens was superb, but a bit too fiddly.
• The Kodak Retina IIa was also excellent optically, but I had trouble framing via the squinty viewfinder.
• Last but not least, my 1949 Leica IIIC is a compact jewel, but is also fiddly in the field. It is a deliberate tool, so maybe not quite right for a bicycle grab-and-take camera.

Being familiar with my Canonet of 20 years ago, I decided to try one again. Some of the later models cost serious $$$ from KEH and other vendors. The days of finding such a camera at a garage sale for $5 are long gone! On a whim, I bought a GIII QL17 for $13.50 plus minor shipping from the big auction site. $13.50?

Canon made a series of these fixed lens rangefinder Canonet cameras starting in 1961. They were  outstanding commercial successes. The earlier Canonets were big and heavy cameras. In 1969, the company redesigned the line to be smaller and lighter. Canon sold 1.2 million of the last version, the GIII QL17. QL meant Quick Load, a clever mechanism to make loading the film easier. And 17 represented the maximum aperture of ƒ/1.7. Canon also sold lower price 19 and 28 models. All had excellent coated lenses. The lens on the ƒ/1.7 model is a 6-element double-Gauss design, single coated.

A problem with all of these 1960s and 1970s cameras is they depended on 1.35 volt mercury batteries to power the light meters. The mercury battery had a steady voltage output until the cell was close to exhaustion. As a replacement, many people now use a Wein Cell, which is 1.4 volts. Hearing aide batteries, which are inexpensive, also work. 

Clean design with settings visible from above

Film path with Quick Load panel on the right. I replaced the old foam light seals.

My camera was dirty, but some alcohol wipes cleaned it. The foam light seal strips had deteriorated into a sticky tar. Alcohol on Q-Tips and some toothpicks cleaned most of the glop. Although the viewfinder was a bit hazy, the rangefinder was accurate horizontally and aligned vertically. Best of all, this body did not suffer from the common sticky Canon shutter blade syndrome. The shutter speeds from 1/4 to 1/500 sounded reasonable, especially after some exercise. Even the self-timer was reliable.

Trouble: the light meter was comatose. I cleaned the contacts in the battery compartment, but there was no electrical activity of any kind. Instead, I can temporarily use my Reflx Lab light meter, a compact unit that slides into the flash shoe. At least ten Chinese companies have recently introduced small shoe-mount light meters with various types of displays and button configurations. I assume many of these meters share a sensing unit and integrated electronic package. 

Olympia

One early morning in March, after breakfast at Bread Peddler and while waiting for a car repair, I walked around 4th Avenue and Capital Way. The light was soft. I loaded a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 in the Canonet. (Click any picture to expand it to 2400 pixels wide)

The parking lot located off Capitol Way at the alley that runs between State and 4th Avenues is usually filthy and trashed. But the graffiti is colorful. 

116 State Avenue

Capital Way view south

Capital Way power box

Conclusions

The 40mm ƒ/1.7 lens on this little Canonet is terrific! It is high resolution and shows little or no distortion. No complaints here. However, Canon used a filter mount of 48mm, which was semi-unique to Canon products. I ordered a 48mm vented hood from one of the Chinese vendors.

The Ektar 100 film was a pleasant surprise. In the past, I had trouble with the Ektar colors in bright sunny conditions. But in overcast, the contrast and bright colors are just right. I scanned these negatives on my Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner, while with previous rolls, I used a Plustek 7600. Possibly, the Nikon does some internal data processing in a different way, more suited to the Ektar color palette. Regardless, I'm pleased and will use Ektar 100 again.  

  

From the Archives: Northern Greece in 1951

When my dad first moved to Greece in 1951, he and some of the other engineers took field trips to northern Greece to look at rivers, irrigation canals, and waterworks. They also visited local engineering offices to obtain stream flow and discharge data. Sometimes they flew on a Grumman Goose airplane. I assume it was operated by the American Mission in the early 1950s. 

One of the towns where they stayed was Komotini, a city in the region of East Macedonia and Thrace in northeastern Greece.  

The New Mosque and Clock Tower, March 14, 1951

Note the stork on top of the bell tower

The baker of Komotini - delicious loaves

In 1951, Komotini was rather basic compared to the bright lights of Athens. My dad noted that accommodations were primitive and food grim. He also commented on the Turkish toilet. It sounds like it was a novelty to him, although surely he had encountered them before in Asia. I remember him telling me that when he asked for hot water to shave, the hotel host brought a tepid teacup of water. 

Agricultural wagons

What's the way to Athens?

Muslim ladies of Komotini

Komotini had a large Muslim minority. After the 1919-1922 military disaster in Anatolia, ethnic Greek and Turkish populations were exchanged and moved (forced) back to their homelands. Many Greeks had never lived in mainland Greece, and many Turkish Muslims had not lived in Turkey. As noted in Wikipedia, "Historians have described the exchange as a legalized form of mutual ethnic cleansing." It was a horrifying episode. But Komotini was not included in the forced exchange, so many Muslim families continued to live there. Two mosques are still active in town. The New Mosque (see the first photograph) has its own web page. 

Buklutzas River

I had trouble finding this spot in Komotini. My family told me that the Buklutzas River has been covered over and is now the main highway through town. None of these buildings exist now. So much for progress.....

The cobbler of Komotini

Note the gent with the overcoat walking away from the cameras is wearing a fez. In Turkey proper, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had banned the fez (to be replaced by the western fedora), but men continued to wear fezes in former Ottoman areas.

A short social note:  After the brutal and vicious Greek Civil War ended in 1949, towns in northern Greece were desperately poor. Many of the farmers lived on almost a subsistence basis from the produce they grew. My stepdad, a Greek surgeon, said many villagers had never seen a doctor or been to a dentist. Childbirth was dangerous and often led to death. Tuberculosis ravaged families. Appalachia in USA may have been similar at that time, with isolated towns and desperate poverty.

Today, towns like Komotini are clean and cheerful. Stores are well-stocked, streets clean and well-paved, buildings neat, and the townsfolk have bright little cars, decent clothes, and look happy and well-fed. They welcome tourists. They foregather at nice local restaurants and coffee shops. Their children have often been to college and many are bilingual. 

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης) told Fareed Zakaria at the World Economic Forum that on a day that is sunny, windy, not too hot, not too cold, Greece generates 90 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. Prime Minister Mitsotakis graduated from Harvard University, Stanford University, and Harvard Business School. 

And today, Appalachia is still Appalachia, an underclass of grinding poverty, drugs, food insecurity, crumbling towns, racism, and despondency. What is wrong with this picture?

Photography:  My dad took these these photographs on Ansco Super Speed film. One collector on Flickr states that this film was rated at ASA 100. He used his Canon rangefinder camera with a 50mm ƒ/1.9 Serenar lens. I remember this camera but I sold it in the 1970s.

Back When it was Cool: Charles River, Boston, January 1968

Winter of 1968

With the summer midday heat here in Vicksburg hovering around 34° or 35° C (95° F), one thinks of cool. In my stuff (of which there is far too much), I found some Kodachrome slides of the frozen Charles River in Boston. I took these in January of 1968, when I knew very little about photography but was excited by views and vistas. My grandmother was visiting (the lady from Escape from Berlin), and we went to the Top of the Hub observation deck in the Prudential Tower. I can't recall if we ate lunch up there. 

Charles River view west with Cambridge across the river

Charles River view northeast towards Charlestown with Longfellow Bridge in the center

The handsome multi-arch bridge is the Longfellow Bridge, built in 1901. A friend remembered the badly rusted steelwork some 20 years ago. The structure received an almost total rebuild in the early 2000s. Beyond the Longfellow bridge is the Charles River Dam, on which is located Boston's Museum of Science.

Back Bay in foreground with the Charles Basin and MIT campus across the river

Decades ago, I taught sailing in the Charles Basin at Community Boating. This public sailing organization has run programs for adults and children here since 1946. Summer was lazy and laid-back. We filled baggies with water and threw them at other boats. During those sailing days, I sometimes walked across town to Durgin Park Restaurant for a cup of chow-dah and a 95 cent luncheon. Then home via the MBTA on Dime-Time (yes, only 10 cents).

In autumn, the winds picked up and the fun increased. If a boat went over, a motor boat came out to pick us up and right the capsized sail boat. Then they took us to a doctor in Back Bay who administered tetanus shots. There was none of that get permission from your parents stuff - you got a tetanus shot. How times have changed. 

But best of all, the Charles River has been drastically cleaned. Once a national scandal for its pollution, the river now hosts fish, eagles and other wildlife. This is a dramatic example of the benefits of federal waterway protections by means of the EPA's Charles River Initiative.

Topographic Notes

Let us step back into topographic history. Much of the flat land area today in Boston is artificial land fill. We often use the term "reclamation," as if we are reclaiming the land from the sea or river, waging battle on the evil forces of nature. 

Landfilling in Boston since 1630 has more than doubled the urban area (unfortunately, at the expense of destroying what must have been highly productive wetlands). The figure above is adapted from Rosen, Brenninkmeyer, and Maybury (1993).

The Charles River Basin and the neighborhood that you see in the snowy pictures above is artificial. The tidal river between Boston and Cambridge was formerly an expanse of mudflats which were exposed twice daily and renowned for mosquitoes and nasty aromas in summer. The original 1910 dam converted the basin into an agreeable fresh-water body, along which fashionable homes, a landscaped esplanade, and institutions of higher learning were located (Whitehill 1968). 

Museum of Science on original Charles River Dam

Little of the original dam can be seen because a busy highway crosses it and the Museum of Science was built on the dam in 1950. 

New Charles River Dam and pump house, completed in 1978

The new Charles River Dam is multi-function project. Not only was it designed to protect against unusually high tide or surge in Boston Harbor moving upstream into the basin but also to maintain a restricted range of water level in the Charles River Basin. Large pumps can pump rainwater and runoff from the river side of the dam out into the harbor side (on the left in the photograph). The pumps first operated during the Northeast Blizzard of '78. 

Back Bay in 1944, before construction of the Prudential Tower

The Back Bay has been Boston's most fashionable neighborhood since the marsh ands tidal flats along the original Charles River were drained and filled, with construction starting in 1859. From Wikipedia:

Setback requirements and other restrictions, written into the lot deeds of the newly filled Back Bay, produced harmonious rows of dignified three- and four-story residential brownstones (though most along Newbury Street are now in commercial use). The Back Bay is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is considered one of the best-preserved examples of 19th-century urban architecture in the United States. In 1966, the Massachusetts Legislature, "to safeguard the heritage of the city of Boston by preventing the despoliation" of the Back Bay, created the Back Bay Architectural District to regulate exterior changes to Back Bay buildings.

My wife's mother and parents lived in a Back Bay townhouse before World War II, but I do not know the address. If you worked in downtown Boston, this would be elegant and convenient.

Visit Boston, walk in the Back Bay, admire the fashionable and expensive stores, lunch at a bistro, have your hair done at a spa, and consider how history surrounds you. Tis is one of the most European of American cities.

References

Rosen, P. S., Brenninkmeyer, B. M., and Maybury, L. M. 1993. “Holocene Evolution of Boston Inner Harbor, Massachusetts,” Journal of Coastal Research, Vol 9, No. 2, pp 363-377.

Whitehill, W.M.  1968.  Boston, A Topographical History.  Second edition, enlarged, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 299 p.

The snow pictures are from Kodachrome II film, probably taken with my dad's Canon rangefinder camera (unknown model) and its 50mm ƒ/1.9 Canon Serenar lens. My dad's 1944 Kodachrome is from a Perfex camera (unknown model).

More 1950s Excellence: The Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 Leica Thread Mount (ltm) lens

The 1950s and 1960s were an amazing era of innovation and creativity for the Japanese optical companies. They sold equipment equal or superior to many of the German offerings at the time and eventually dominated sales in the USA. 

Long-term readers may remember that I bought a Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 ltm lens in 2019. It was superb optically but was a big cylinder that blocked too much of the viewfinder of my little Leica IIIC. The big front element may have caused some sun holes in my shutter curtains. I reluctantly sold it and looked for one of the smaller ƒ-stop Canon lenses. 

As I noted in the earlier article, Canon mounted their early post-war lenses in heavy chrome mounts. I wanted one of the lighter weight late-1950s versions. Problem: many (most?) of these 50mm black barrel ƒ/1.8 lenses suffer from hazy or etched inner elements. No one has a solid answer why this happens, but the haze was likely caused by gas from the lubricants used in the aperture mechanism. Many of the 1.8 lenses are totally ruined and cannot be cleaned, but once in a while, one shows up on the infamous 'Bay with a clear interior. 

There's a fungus among us

Precise engraving; brass and aluminum helical mount

I bought one of the 1.8 lenses with clear glass but minor fungus. The Japanese vendor was honest and the price was right. I think this is the 50 1.8 Type III, introduced in December 1958. I have used fungus before. The 35mm ƒ/3.5 Leitz Summaron lens that I bought in Buenos Aires in 1982 was a fungus farm. A technician cleaned off the inner coating to remove the fungus, and I proceeded to use the lens for another 15 years. No issues at all, and barely any flare problems. As usual, I wish I had kept that lens.

Here are some initial examples from my new/old Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi on Fuji Acros film. 

2917 Drummond Street (empty for years)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (1/60 ƒ/4.0½)

Have a seat, Valley Street (1/60 ƒ/5.6)

Stouts Bayou footbridge at Avenue A

Stouts Bayou from Letitia Street

Need a mask? Letitia Street

Morgan Lane (1/100 ƒ/5.6, yellow-green filter)

Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8)

1920s or 1930s cottage, 2613 Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8.0½)

With Vicksburg's hilly terrain, many older homes have serious steps.

Bowmar Avenue house undergoing endless renovation (1/200 ƒ/8, yellow-green filter) 

Conclusions

This is a nice lens optically and mechanically. I have no complaints. Oops, one issue: this lens uses 40mm filters, an odd size (while dozens of German and Soviet lenses used 40.5mm). With an adapter, I can use Series VI filters. The correct Canon screw-in filters would be more convenient and faster in the field, but they are rare and seriously expensive from the Japanese sellers. All flaws in the photos above are those of the photographer's. I have sent the lens to Don Goldberg (DAG Camera) for cleaning and checking. When it is back, I will use it regularly, along with my 1960s Soviet Jupiter-8 lens and my 1949 Leitz Summitar. (Yes, I know, I have far too many cameras and lenses....)

Update July 2022:  The little Canon lens is back from its cleaning. There was no coating damage. Now to make time to use the little Leica IIIC.