What fun this year at the 18th Annual Cool Desert Nights! The Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce puts on this event and I volunteered to take photos for the chamber. Over 900 cars registered for the 3-day family oriented event and the crowds were amazing.

Here are the photos I took over the 3 days.

Thursday night over a hundred cars gathered at the TRAC facility in Pasco. At 5:30 the cars started up and cruised through Pasco, Kennewick, Richland. After getting some photos at TRAC, I set up at the Cable Bridge to get some shots as the cars passed. The whole section of Jadwin Ave. along the Uptown Mall was blocked off and the cars that participated in the cruise were allowed to park on the street and a large number of other cars parked in the Uptown Mall parking lot.

Click on the arrow to start the slide show.

Friday was a busy day, starting with a small show & shine at Desert Wind Winery where the blue sky made a gorgeous background. I enjoyed a glass of 2009 Ora while shooting a couple of panorama shots of the parking lot full of cars as well as photos of various cars.

In the evening, the cars all gathered in the Uptown Mall parking lot for a ‘particpants only’ cruise that wrapped around downtown Richland where large crowds had gathered along the sidewalks to watch. I had fun hitching a ride in the back of an El Camino along the cruise route, getting a number of photos of the various cars and the crowd. The car that got the most attention was the 56 Chevy that could shoot flames out of the exhaust.

The evening finished with the bands Colorblind and Pastic Soul playing at Jack-sons. I stopped by to get some photos before heading home so I could get an early start the next morning.

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Saturday started with the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast at the Jefferson Park Gazebo, but actually cars started pulling into Jefferson Park and the Uptown Mall before 4 a.m. to get prime spots for the judging later in the day. After getting pictures of the cars and crowd I was able to get on top of the Octopus Garden and attempt some panorama shots from quite a vantage point. It was almost noon, and I decided to head home. For those who stayed, slow drags started at noon and at 3:30 p.m. over two dozen awards are given out in a number of categories. The evening is capped off again at Jack-sons with the band Eclectic Approach.

Click on the arrow to start the slide show.

Were you able to make it this year? It was a great event and I am already looking forward to next year!

Palouse Falls is always an interesting place to visit and I have been wanting to do some more experimenting with panorama photos. All the nearby rivers are now overflowing their banks and the Palouse River is no different, the dark spring runoff was pouring over the falls in a deluge.

I figured that some panorama shots of the falls at sunset would be perfect and driving their with my sweetheart on Memorial Day after some yard work would be even better. The sun was to set shortly after 8:30 so if we left the Tri-Cities at 6:00, the hour and a half drive would put us at the falls at 7:30. Plenty of time to get some shots with the setting sun. Silly me. This is not a mountain scene but a river which falls 184 feet further. By the time we reached the falls at 7:30 the sun was well up the canyon walls.

Trying not to waste any time I quickly snapped a couple sets of photos that I could piece together as a panorama. I need more practice at creating the panoramas but am pleased with these early attempts. It was difficult getting the lower vertical shots at the base of the falls where the river runs out of the pool and I need to figure out how to get the best exposure for blending into the panorama. And I need to pay more attention to how the Sun really works.

Besides this photo, I have 3 others Palouse Falls Panoramas on Flickr.