Today was mostly about Boise and thereabouts.  I made a long haul up to the mountains to shoot a few signs.  Unfortunately, dark grey clouds rolled in for that.  Natural beauty and death-defying kayakers made all the driving and gas money almost worth it.  Back again someday to shoot those signs again in the sun.

Let’s get started with some Boise signs.  This is a modern sign.  It replaced a drab text only, buffalo-less wooden sign sometime after 2011:

Even nicer at night:

 

A real-deal, vintage drive-in with double drive-up windows.  It was lit in 2013 — but not for me on this trip.  It might be one of those time-of-year things.  A lot of signs are turned off when the places are not open — and this time of year, in this part of the country, the sun doesn’t go down til after 9 pm:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/phydeaux460/8477466617/

 

A rusty crusty.  A repainting would probably drab-ify this sign.  Looks like someone is taking care of the pointing arrowhead — but not the rest of the sign.  Why’s that?

A great neon detail on this sign:

 

A fun modern sign which is lit at night in yellow and red:

 

More is more.  The wheel is lit with red neon — sequentially to create a spinning effect:

 

Moving on to nearby Meridian.  McFadden’s Market is long gone:

This banner on the gutted building on which the sign hangs concerns me.  Are they going to “update” the sign with new text or grapes or what?  Sure hope not:

 

Also in Meridian.  I soooo wanted to shoot this one at night — esp. since it’s lit during the day.  But shortly after dark, they were closed and the sign was off.  I found out the next day that they had closed early for an annual meeting.  Argh!

 

From way up in McCall — where (as described at the beginning of this post) there was no sun at all:

 

Back in Boise — where the sun was hit and miss.  There were little windows of sun but you had to wait for them.  Like spearfishing.  Watching the shadows on the ground, raise the camera & bang.  Then move on to the next stop… and wait.

 

Surely, Jim’s Appliance & Furniture must have had neon letters originally:

 

On to Homedale for more cloud challenges.  What’s worse though are these manmade obstacles.  Some city worker followed the rules and planted this light pole within inches of the sign.  “Reshoot in AM” has been added to my notes for next time:

 

Also in Homedale.  I posted the giant bowling ball & pin at my Flickr account.  If you’re new around here, you might not know that I post an equal amount of different photos during these trips over there — the “higher quality” subjects:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/

I hope these white background plastic signs are growing on you like they are on me.  I have never been able to find a name for them.  What shall we call them?  White corrugated?  White corduroy?  Certainly, they were cheaper than neon panel signs — but they still each have a unique style.  The two font styles on this one are classy, if you ask me:

More posts later tonight —

dj