A Unique Experience: Exploring An Abandoned Hospital in The Palouse

The Palouse region, nestled in the southeastern corner of Washington state, is often referred to as the Tuscany of America. With hundreds of miles of beautiful rolling hills and vast, breathtaking skies, the Palouse is a scenic wonder. Unlike many places with designated overlooks and pull-out areas, the Palouse gradually reveals its landscape as you drive through it, with ever-changing fields and play of light. I will delve into this further in my next post, but for now, I want to share images and experiences from an abandoned hospital in the Palouse.

The region is a treasure trove of abandoned places, including homes, trucks, cars, and even entire towns. For years, I have known about an abandoned hospital in Colfax, Washington. Previously, the building was boarded up with “No Trespassing” signs posted. A few years ago, the property was purchased by a gentleman named Austin, who decided to open it for tours catering to photographers and those intrigued by all things haunted.  

In June, I facilitated two workshops in the Palouse and thought it would be a unique experience to spend a few hours photographing St. Ignatius Hospital. I visited the webpage and arranged for a tour. I spoke with the affable Austin, who facilitated our visit. If you are interested in doing your own tour information can be found on their website (see link).

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Shooting with the iPhone and Hipstamatic App

This year, I chose to do a few things differently during my trip to the Palouse, including photographing the workshop with my Sony a7riv, A1, and my iPhone. I have become a true believer in the RAW files produced by the iPhone. Almost every image I shot with the Sony cameras was also captured on the iPhone. Interestingly, every image records the exact GPS location. This information can be accessed in Lightroom’s maps module and the locations feature in the Photos app on Apple computers and mobile devices. This is extremely helpful for repeated visits to the region, as I can track changes over the years through the images.

This is the Lightroom maps module using the information from the Apple ProRAW files that I import into Lightroom for processing

The Hipstamatic App

Hipstamatic is a camera app available on the Apple App Store for mobile devices. A friend introduced me to this app several years ago. During a private workshop I conducted for him in the Faroe Islands last year, we fondly reminisced about the app and our past trips. Wanting to use Hipstamatic again, I sought a fresh feel and style for the images, kind of like a colorized effect similar to what you see in many movies.

The Hipstamatic app, with its assortment of lens and film combinations, lets you create and edit photographs with a distinctive appearance. After experimenting for a few hours in a cafe, I found a look I adored and have been using ever since. I won’t delve into the specifics here, but the images for this article were captured using the Jane Lens and Rasputin Film. I set up the camera, selected the simulated look for the camera body, and set it as my default. 

The app offers ample flexibility in format choices, ranging from 1:1 (square), 4×5, 4×3, 3:2, and 16×9. This enables diverse perspectives based on the subject. Additionally, you can choose between normal, wide, or telephoto lenses, as well as the front-facing camera. I opted for a black border to facilitate edits without affecting a white border.

I previously wrote an article on the Hipstamatic app titled “Being Square – Seeing Double”. You should check it out here.

How I Did It

This is part one of my article series from the Palouse, where I shot with both the Sony and iPhone. I used the iPhone’s ProRAW option along with the Hipstamatic app. I’ve been a frequent visitor to the Palouse since 2004. It’s one of my favorite spots, with an abundance of photographic subjects. The more there is to photograph, the happier I am.  

This article focuses on photography in St. Ignatius Hospital. It will be followed by a comprehensive article about photography in the Palouse region. It was a rewarding year for photography in the Palouse, with thousands of exposures and many images with which I’m delighted.

My twice-yearly workshop groups in the Palouse are intimate, consisting of 4 to 5 participants per workshop. We travel together in a Chevrolet Suburban 4WD for the entire workshop, which allows us to explore places that many of the carpool-type workshops can’t. We dine together, engaging in enriching discussions on photography and techniques. This year, we saw an array of cameras, including Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, two Hasselblad DX 2 cameras, and Phase One XT cameras. The participants are seasoned photographers with a good grasp of their equipment and post-processing methods. We forgo classroom sessions, as past experience has shown that attendees are eager to be out capturing images.  

We head out early in the morning and continue until sunset, sometimes covering over 200 miles a day while capturing countless photographs. I hope you enjoy this series of images and stay tuned for more Palouse images in an upcoming article.

The Hospital

Here are a lot of images made inside the hospital with the Hipstamatic App.  I look for many things when making images.  I like the abstract of the peeling paint as well as other pieces.  There was also a room that was kind of creepy with lots of strange dolls.  It helped give the place a haunted feel.  We weren’t quite sure where the dolls came from but they were pretty strange.

Some of the areas were rotted out and couldn’t be accessed.  But many rooms were very interesting places to visit.  Standing there all by myself while I tried to feel the energy in each room I couldn’t help but think what stories the walls could tell.

Enjoy!

Thank you for viewing these.  Comments are always welcome and can be added to the Forum.  Look for the images from the Palouse workshop soon.  We had an amazing trip with excellent photographers on both trips.

Kevin Raber
June 2023

Kevin Raber
Indianapolis, IN

Photography is my passion and has been for 50 plus years. My career in photography has allowed me to travel the world, meet some of the most interesting people on the planet and see things I could never have dreamed of. My goal is to share the passion of picture taking through photographs and teaching with as many people as I can, hoping it brings them as much joy and happiness as it has me. I do this through photoPXL.com, this site, as well as Rockhopper Workshops, and other projects, as well as teaching as Artist In Residence at the Indianapolis Art Center.