PRST STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID OMAHA, NE PERMIT NO. 36
Volume VIII, Statewide Issue 1
JANUARY 2014
Snapshots of rural Iowa
Somewhere between Rockwell City and Sac City sits this all brick barn surrounding by other brick structures. All photographs courtesy of Roger Feldhans. These pictures and many more can be seen in his 12 month calendar “Off the Beaten Path”.
Pursuit of barns leads Pomeroy photographer on monthly 3,000 mile treks through Iowa by Greg Forbes A little odd and off the beaten path. That’s exactly how Pomeroy-based freelance photographer Roger Feldhans prefers his adventures. Those adventures stray well away from highways and lead him down dusty roads to structures of Iowa’s agriculture backbone: barns. Whether new, refinished or on its last leg, Feldhans searches for barns in all seasons, in all weather. Even the sub-zero temperatures and strong winds in early January could not keep him out of fields and pastures. Feldhans credits his hardiness to his background. Before he lived in Iowa, he and his family called Spokane, Washington, and Canada home. “I’m used to it,” he said of the cold. In fact, winter shooting is his preference because it provides unobstructed views of a structure’s most intricate features. “I like winter. A lot of barns and things,
Above left, the colors of summer bring life to a barn that has seen better days north of Carroll. At right, a white barn in Jolley shows the wear and tear of years of use on the white wash but remains in worker order, complete with a brick silo.
you can’t see because of the trees. Sometimes it’s tough to get a good view,” explained the off-road photographer. “In the winter, snowfall cleans everything up, no matter how messy the place might be.” He returns to a majority of his subjects every season to capture a different mood of the barns. Feldhans added that he par-
ticularly enjoys the tall corn of summer where just the roofs of the barns can be seen at the right angle. This odyssey has led him to approximately 700 barns and journeys that amass 3,000 miles a month, possibly more. “Some months are a lot higher,” he
said. “It’s one of those border to border things. I never even leave the state.” Feldhans said he is often asked how he can log so many miles without traveling across state lines. And his reply is simply that Iowa is more than a couple of interstates and major highways. “About 95 percent of it is get on a gravel road, point in one direction and keep driving,” he said. He added that his love for back roads stemmed from his childhood in Canada and Washington. Between big city life in Spokane and an isolated town in Canada, Feldhans said his thirst for adventure was fairly limited. “We didn’t have a lot of barns in either place but when we got to Iowa, it was so rural and open and we could just go places and see things,” he said. “Iowa became a whole new experience of getting out and going and feeling safe and comfortable doing it.” BARNS, Page 8