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September 14, 2018
Twin Peaks, WA
May 24, 2018I’m in love with this American TV show called TWIN PEAKS.
It was a strange little cult TV show that aired 27 years ago, full of 90’s cheese and melodrama. Yet it was a show so perverse and absurd, it lassoed me instantly and made me cared almost to the point of obsession.
Last year, the long awaited revival, Twin Peaks: The Return premiered on May 21st with an 18 part mini-series that lasted until September. For four months I was snagged back into the world of Twin Peaks and I was once again reminded of what I loved most about this show - out of all the eccentric characters and disturbing horror scenes, the best thing about Twin Peaks is it’s locations.
Many of the town’s exterior shots were filmed in and around the city of Snoqualmie and North Bend, a lumber town 35 miles east of Seattle, WA. I was in the area for my 30th birthday so I figured instead of celebrating with a cake, I’m going to have a slice of cherry pie at The Double R Diner!
Map of my itinerary - I mapped out all of the locations I wanted to visit in one day, and turns out everything fits into a loop! (click here for google maps itinerary link)
My first stop of the day was Big Ed’s Gas Farm located in Preston, when I got here the place looked unoccupied but I was uncertain. The building looked completely different from the show but the corner still looked the same! I stopped to take a few photos before moving on.
Big Ed’s Gas Farm 2018 / 1990
Following the street down for 4 miles and it will take you to the Road House, the building itself is the same from the show but almost unrecognizable unless you stand at the exact angle as the exterior shot. I was surprised there was still a Chevron gas station across the street just like 27 years ago.
Road House/Bang Bang Bar
Continuing south-east to the city of Snoqualmie is the 270 ft tall Snoqualmie Falls - The iconic waterfall in the opening credits of the show, also one of Washington State’s most visited tourist spots. It started to rain as soon as I got there making the crowd thin out a little which gave me awesome opportunities to shoot some iconic shots.
I was so glad I brought my waterproof case and rain jacket!
Following the Snoqualmie river south and eventually it will take you to a chillingly familiar location: Ronnette’s bridge. This bridge looked almost exactly as it did 27 years ago, with the exception of it now being a pedestrian trail instead of a railroad track. There were so many overgrown vegetations I couldn’t access the north side of the river bank to get the iconic shot with the mountains in the background.
Poor Ronette Pulaski
Right next to the bridge just happened to be “Sparkwood & 21”, the corner where Laura ran from James on the night she died.
Sparkwood & 21, but facing opposite direction (The Ronette bridge seen in the screenshot is directly behind me)
Take a left on Sparkwood & 21 (real life 396th Drive) north and it will take you to this amazing rally school called DirtFish. The school’s facility and track is built on the old Snoqualmie Mill, which was the setting for the show’s Packard Mill, and it’s main office building was used as Twin Peak’s Sheriff’s Station.
The office building is instantly recognizable as the sheriff’s station, even the main receptionist counter! The employee there told me I was about the 4th person to show up that day, but on a busy “Twin Peaks” day, there would be hundreds of people visiting throughout the day!
They even kept a prop Bronco from 2 years ago in the parking lot!
Also from the parking lot, there was a clear view of the rally track and the old mill. Today the mill only has a single smokestack left but its still quite iconic.
I would love to come back and take a class here!
Coming back to Sparkwood & 21 and we’ll take the other street down SE Reinig Rd, and after about a minute of driving along the river a familiar scenery hits me in the stomach and I couldn’t stop smiling.
“Diane, 11:30 a.m., February Twenty-fourth. Entering the town of Twin Peaks…”
The iconic town sign isn’t there anymore, so bringing my own sign was a good idea!
Continuing down the picturesque Reinig Rd, passing all the countless Douglas firs I headed down southeast to the town of North Bend. Upon entering the towns main intersection I was immediately greeted with the most fondly remembered location of Twin Peaks - The Double R Diner (Twede’s Cafe)
Twede’s Cafe is a local hot spot that had gone through many remodeling and changes over the years since its original TV debut. With the recent revival of the new season, the production company had the entire restaurant restored to its original 90’s on-screen aesthetic, everything looks and feels like the original Double R!
Came to The Double R Diner.
Ordered a damn fine cup of coffee (and hot!) with a slice of cherry pie.
Bucket list checked off.
Happy birthday. 👍
After the pie I grabbed a few souvenirs and headed southeast towards “Red Diamond City Motel” which was the real life Mt Si Motel. It’s a small cheap motel catering to passing logging truck drivers. I rang the office doorbell and was met by the motel’s owner, who was was happy to show me the room they used to film a scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
The room is completely different now as one would expect with the exception of some wall stains, which is accompanied by a sign stating what the stains were.
I read the sign on the wall with David Lynch’s speech pattern in my head, and it was hilarious.
After leaving Mt Si Motel, I passed a few drive-by locations including Twin Peaks High and a few recognizable street intersections (sorry I didn’t bother taking pics) then made my way towards the Fat Trout Trailer Park.
Much to my surprise, this is what Fat Trout Trailer Park looks like now - an empty lot. I learned later on it was tore down around 2012.
I took a picture of the near by electric pole… No I didn’t bother hunting down the actual pole with “324810” on it lol. (although I really wanted to)
Last location of the day would be Laura, Donna, and James’ picnic spot. It is now a public park called Snoqualmie Point Park.
As the day of self-guided tour ends I sit here overlooking this gorgeous Snoqualmie Valley, letting the whole day - no in fact, the whole week, sink in.
Monday I stood 5,242 feet high atop a snow sculpted summit; yesterday I woke up in my tent, on a roaring desolate beach. Today I am sitting in Twin Peaks, thinking about how I never want to leave.
I guess it’s true what they say… Travel far enough, you meet yourself.
I really love the Pacific Northwest.
Thank you for reading!
(Camping blog coming soon…)
Fuji FP-100c Photo Frame Project
December 28, 2016This year has been a rollercoaster ride for me both professionally and personally. I had been in a creative hunch for the most of the year and I had not done a single personal project since March. I needed to do something to re-spark my creativity, and I wanted to do it through a new medium. I wanted to learn something new.
As an avid fan of Polaroids and instant films, especially the Fuji Land Camera packfilms, I’ve always used the FP100c/FP3000b cartridge to store and display my favorite packfilm photos. It looks simple, elegant, and it’s a perfect re-purpose of the normally discarded film cartridge.
“DIY PHOTO FRAME” Tutorial from www.casualphotophile.com
However, I wanted to go a step further and create a packfilm cartridge photo frame with a hidden surprise, I immediately thought: - What if I made a cartridge photo frame thats also a hidden light box with hidden light effects? Eureka.
It was around middle of November when the idea sparked so naturally I wanted to make it in time for the Holidays, because 1. It would be a great personalized gift to give; 2. It would give me a hard deadline. In the end I made a total of 3 film cartridge light boxes, in this post I will talk in detail about one of them.
I wanted to make one based on the artwork of my closest friend and frequent collaborator, Janda Farley. Her piece “Outsides/insides” had been a favorite of mine and I thought it was the perfect piece for this due to the depth and layers within the composition.
Janda Farley “Outsides/insides” 2015
Here’s a diagram of what I’m about to create. Piece of cake yeah??
So the first step was to determine which area I would like to illuminate, I did a quick photoshop job to figure out which areas would work out the best, and it ended up being served as a template for my prints as well as stencils.
Stencil layer on the left, photo layer on the right
I scanned the faceplate of the FP-100c cartridge in order to get a perfect 1:1 ratio of the cartridge size, and from that I resized and aligned the artwork to fully utilize the display window. Then I duplicated and pen-tooled all areas I would like the light to shine through while filling the rest black, this will act as a “stencil layer” which will shield the LED lights coming from behind creating specifically lit areas. In total there will be 3 layers of photos combined, 1st layer on matte photo paper, 2nd layer on vellum paper, 3rd (stencil) layer on card stock.
After printing and cutting, I combined the 3 layers and framed it within the faceplate of the cartridge. I hovered it over my desk lamp, it worked beautifully!
View from the inside
Frontal view. Yeah!!
Next step was to determine how to build the electronics that goes inside. I know I wanted 3 light sources inside: 1 for the doorway, 1 for the wolves eyes, and 1 for the night sky. I wanted the end product to be exactly as seen above.
I gave myself a 1 week crash course on electronics 101 using a mix of YouTube, internet forums and just Google-ing around. I went and bought a breadboard kit and using the app EveryCircuit (great app to learn with!!), I made this circuitry diagram based on the would be locations of the LED and battery placement:
Using Ohm’s law I calculated (to the best of my ability) the resistance needed for each LED.
I plugged the parts needed into a breadboard to make sure it worked and it did! Now time to build it!
Soldering for the first time was actually not as bad as I thought, I bought a cheapo soldering iron and hollowed out a kitchen sponge and after watching a few YouTube videos I was ready to go. Using a Third Hand tool I took my time and soldered the entire thing in about an hour. Burnt my fingers only a few times and I learned (the hard way) not to reach for the iron without looking…
I’m sure someone on the internet is cringing at this mess lol.
Completed circuitry.
It works! Time to assemble!
With the circuitry now complete, it was time to put it all together. I needed the positions of the LEDs to be precise, so I printed an additional copy of the artwork to use as a map for positioning the LEDs, wires, and battery.
Using the “photo map” I can locate and easily hot glue the LEDs in their correct positions, I also hollowed out a slot for the push button to be on the back of the cartridge.
Everything hot glued and conformed into place.
Final stretch. Everything being put into place.
Cutting through the back plate of the film cartridge was a royal pain in the ass, I’m not too crafty so I just took my time and patiently saw though the plastic until I had the roughly sized square hole for the switch. Luckily I didn’t even need to glue it, the hole was just a few millimeters smaller than the switch for me to squeeze right through and hold it there permanently!
Perfectly blended into the backplate, you wouldn’t know its a button until you accidentally press it!
To hide the innards, I cut a slightly longer lengthed card stock that lined the back of the cartridge. The length being longer so that it could be bent and tucked into the top lip creating a smooth ramp along the top opening. The 9v battery turned out to be a little bit bigger depth-wise for the cartridge so I had to compromise and cut a piece of the back lining out, that millimeter of card stock really made a world of difference!
With everything put together, the piece is complete!!
Here it is animated.
Here it is in action. Yes, it does fit into a Polaroid Land Camera 250!
This project took me a week to research and a weekend to complete, it was such a fun and rewarding learning experience. I love that piece of art so much and I can’t wait to surprise Janda with it!
As I mentioned before I made 3 of these photo frames, in my next post I will explain how I utilized a Polaroid Spektra film cartridge and using its own battery to power my next photo frame! Stay tuned!