Visiting the Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Site
Located in Shedd, Oregon, Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Site is an interesting place to visit. This now-decommissioned mill was in operation for more than 160 years. It remains largely intact and, unexpectedly, functional.
I arrived right around 11 and was almost immediately greeted by a site caretaker. I took up his offer to join a tour that was about to start. The tour gave me a decent sense of the place and history from an insider’s perspective. The tour also allowed access to a couple of areas I couldn’t have seen on a self-guided visit.
Over its lifespan the mill was used to make flour and produce electricity. 160 years in operation. Think about that, this mill has been around since Abe Lincoln was president. During World War I it was used to supply relief supplies to Belgium and other European nations. The mill closed when the last owners lost a contract with Safeway. Apparently they closed up the mill and walked away, selling the entire site for $5. Everything, or most everything here still works. Given enough water to turn the turbines it could be making a range of different flours even today. I like the idea that there might be more functional decommissioned mills dotted around the US.
Photography at the Thompson’s Mills site
I didn’t spend a long time here. I did spend long enough to feel like I’d to return when the sun is at a lower angle. Even with mid-day light the mill is interesting enough and well worth a visit.
Exterior view. This would work better with the light at a different angle because I like the perspective and angles of the building, but not so much the straight-on light.
A view from the truck scales. Before dump trucks were a thing they would hitch up the front end of a pickup and lift it at about a 30-40 degree angle to dump grain.
I like the lines in this but not the light.
Hand-crankable gears and belts used to demonstrate the work of the water turbines below. Some of the gears have wooden teeth, which were easily repairable and replaceable. My favorite view. Might be worth a print, and I almost got the lines perfectly straight.
Couldn’t quite find the sense of visual balance that I was looking for. Might return to work on this a bit.
Unfortunately this is one of the off limits areas for self-guided tours. Otherwise I would have spent quite a bit more time here working up a composition.
Photography Notes
Working with a rangefinder camera can be a little bit frustrating since you can’t really see exactly what you’re going to get in terms of composition. This is relevant when you are working on a layered composition with foreground and background elements, or when you’re trying to hide something in the background with something in the foreground, which for me is very often. The framing is annoying enough, but I would also love to preview the depth of field.
I shot everything at 5.6 and most everything at 1/500, even the very dim image in the interior basement area. Since I can’t preview depth of field I’m trying to get familiar with how each of my three lenses performs at this aperture. If I were shooting with a color camera I would definitely have opened up several stops simply to keep noise under control.