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The Minidoka Rangers

Minidoka rangers Hanako and Annette.  (click on images to enlarge)

I thought I would introduce the two park service rangers I’ve been working with here at Minidoka, Hanako and Annette. They work out of a small temporary visitor center that used to be the house of the Hermann family who farmed 128 acres where the historical site is now situated. In addition to all their other duties, the rangers give tours of the site, lately to school groups that bring classes to learn about the camp. Hanako has a personal connection to the Japanese American experience—four generations of her family were incarcerated at the Manzanar (Calif.) concentration camp. Emily, an intern that just started, was helpful in photographing the two rangers and later made sure the root cellar didn’t collapse on me as I wandered inside it (a future blog post).

On to the virtual tour. In a town of almost 10,000 people where almost all of the buildings are made of wood, you need a fire station. Minidoka had two, this is Fire Station #1. When the Hermann family received this homestead in 1950, the fire station was still standing and they lived in the structure until their house was built. This is one of two original buildings at Minidoka that are still in their historic location.

It’s essentially a barrack with an enlarged front to accommodate the fire trucks. The park service has nicely restored the exterior to as near original appearance as possible. For this project I decided to work on some panoramic photos to take in the wide expanse of these buildings and the site. The panoramas are composed of a series of vertical shots starting from the left and going to the right, usually about a span of 180 degrees. It’s really compressing onto a flat surface what your eyes naturally do. A result of this is distortion of straight lines, in this case the horizontal ones. This image used seven shots and were “stitched” together in a program called PTGui.

Intern Emily.

 

Panoramic view from the inside looking towards the big doors of the fire station
A cloud is reflected in a fire station window.
Hanako may not like this as she tidied up the floors for the photos, but I liked the light on the cobwebs.
Fire Station #1.
 
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