palouse tour

Jack Lien has lived in the Palouse for 40 years. He runs Palouse Country Photo Tours (aka Four Seasons Photo Tours) and gets you into places that the well-known photographers can only dream of. Jack knows every back road, old barn, abandoned car and Canola field around. He knows where to shoot for morning light and evening light. While other tours shoot photos of a round barn from the road, he gets you inside because he actually knows the farmers and treats their property with respect. This is the photo tour to take as the Palouse is huge and wandering around with the Chamber of Commerce tourist photo map just doesn't cut it.

I saw photos of what I thought were the rolling green hills of Tuscany. They turned out to be the sensual hills of The Palouse in June.I did my research on photo opps in the area and booked a workshop with Chip Phillips. Chip lives in Spokane and has some great shots on his web page. He knows where and when to go.I flew from Los Angeles to Seattle to Spokane for $365.00 round trip on Alaska Air.Car rental for 5 days was about $395.00with Avis.Where to stay. Colfax is 15 miles from Steptoe Buttes.There are not a lot of places to stay or eat in Colfax. Pullman is14 mile south of Colfax,is a college town with lots of places to eat and stay. I stayed at the Hoilday Inn Express in Pullman. Friendly ,double beds ,full breakfast and warm cookies at night for $129.00 a day.Steptoe Buttes is a state park and you need a permit. I bought an annual on the net for $35.00 a year and got a temp pass before I left LA. At about 3,600 feet of altitude,Steptoe rises above the surrounding farm lands any gives a 360 degree view for photos. The days are light fro 5:00am to 10:00pm.There were there people in our workshop.The sunrises and sunsets are stunning on the butte. I had a NikonD800 a16-35mm,a 70 to 200 with 1.7 extender and a 28 to 300mm. I never used the wide angle on the Buttes.I usually leave a day or two on the front or rear end to cover for bad weather or adventure.This time I spent a day driving the small roads through the Palouse farmlands to shoot the scenery.Parvin Road is just before Colfax. Turn right and the adventure begins. Also, Filan Road is another adventure.It is outside of Colfax just before the fairgrounds off Hwy 26.Tip: do not go any faster than the posted speed limits anywhere in Washington.If you get down to the Palouse Falls you will use the wide angle lens.It is well worth the trip.Rubaloff

After doing an extensive search of the many photo groups offering photo tours to the Palouse, I finally settled on, Palouse Country Photo Tours (www.palousetours.com). The tour leader, Jack Lien, a professional photographer and long time resident of the Palouse, far exceeded my expectation; that is why I have decided to go along with him again this year on his “Golden Harvest-Palouse Country Photo Tour”.If you are considering signing up for a photo tour or workshop, I recommend you first check his website and read the reviews. Don’t be enticed by one of those large photo tour outfits and being crammed into a van with 20 other photographers just to be driven around to a few of the common locations. I also want to point out, after my participation in a Palouse Country Photo Tour, I now have an extensive landscape portfolio, not to mention the hundreds of barns images, I know I could not have got by going with anyone else.