I love to shoot features that we call Road Trips With Rick. They are pretty open ended features about small towns in North Central Washington.

What I love about them is that I have pretty much unlimited artistic discretion as to what I photograph. But the photographs must say something about the town or the people that live there.

So I headed to Okanogan last Tuesday with an open mind and drove/walked around town looking for things to photograph that would convey a general sense of what it is like to live there.

First stop was to Frank’s Barber Shop where I noticed through the store window, Frank and two friends chatting.

I also loved his daily schedule tacked to the wall. There was one appointment written down for that afternoon.

I stopped off at the local escrow office next to the town clock and set up a time later in the morning to shoot it when a room overlooking the clock would be empty.

Then I found a couple examples of wildlife in and around town.

These show how close the town is to the country and its animals.

Back to the office for the clock and blessed to get a photograph of a man in a cowboy hat and a truck in the image.

While headed to lunch, I found these vacuum cleaners out on the sidewalk. Says something like, “I’m gonna clean up this town!”

And finally, I found Art Lucas who was raking up leaves at J.C. Park in Okanogan for compost for his garden. “They tell me my compost is ‘Black Gold,’” he told me.

It was a quick trip and I wish I could have spent more time there. I hope I was able to convey at least a part of what it is like to live in the town of Okanogan – at least for part of one day.

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