All good dogs. Photo by Shawna Donahue for grid C5

A plastic stegosaurus, made from petrochemicals, standing in for our tangled ideas about dinosaurs, fossil fuels, combustion, and extinction. A little absurd, a little ominous, and mostly an invitation to look twice. #Photography #Petrochemicals #FossilFuels #ClimateArt #Stegosaurus #Dinosaur

Once, this little blue elephant belonged to a little one. Now it rests in the grass, bright as memory. Childhood moves on. Plastic doesn’t. #Photography #Plastic #FoundObject #Childhood #BlueElephant #Nostalgia #Memory #ToyPhotograph #VisualPoetry #PlasticWaste #EnduringObjects #EnvironmentalArt

The cargo fuels the vehicle carrying the cargo. A plastic petroleum product shaped like a petroleum-powered vehicle designed to transport petroleum. A tiny petrochemical nesting doll. #Photography #FilmPhotography #ToyPhotography #StillLife #Plastic #Petroleum #VisualCulture #ConceptualPhotography

I made this image 25 years ago while thinking about fossil fuels, climate change, and the curious durability of plastic. Today, this photograph feels neither like a victory lap nor a funeral procession. We have evolved. Not enough, not everywhere, but enough to know change is possible #ClimateChange

An abandoned teething toy, nearly indestructible plastic made suddenly vulnerable by being left behind. That bright blue still carries a surprising tenderness, a small object holding the shape of absence. #Photography #FilmPhotography #FoundObjects #StillLifePhotography #OrdinaryBeauty #SmallThings

Thirty-six exposures will make a photographer think very carefully. Transparency film will make them think twice. Transparency film taught me to make every frame count. I understand apps that limit exposures. The waiting? No thanks. #FilmPhotography #Photography #TransparencyFilm #Red #Triptych

Plastic bags, but make them luminous. My Jolie Laide assignment asks students to stop hunting for the “perfect” subject and find beauty in the awkward, ordinary, or ugly. Seeing is the assignment. #Photography #PhotoEducation #FilmPhotography #JolieLaide #UnconventionalBeauty #PlasticBags

I went to photograph apple trees in winter. This one had accessorized for the wind. #FilmPhotography #Photography #Hatta-Kulkyne #EKC

Dropped off before dawn near Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, I saw nothing until sunrise revealed apple trees full of plastic bags. They failed to deter the magpies, but made beautiful, ghostly fruit. #FilmPhotography #Photography #Hatta-Kulkyne #EKC

My flip-flop has receipts. Take the walk, even if it is only around the block. Wandering counts, and stopping to photograph your shoes counts twice. #Photography #Walking #FlipFlop #PhotoWalk #EverydayPhotography #EKC

From my grad school archive: raspberries, crinkled plastic, and a blue bottle turned strangely floral. I liked using plastic itself to suggest sharing, reducing, and reusing. Environmental messaging, but make it shiny. #Photography #Sustainability #RMIT

Boise PhotoGrid made the news, proving that parking lots, llamas, odd signs, and the occasional dead snake really do add up to a city portrait 😉

Same city, different eyes: the Boise PhotoGrid creates a visual record

A neon sign lighting an empty parking lot on a summer night. A mosaic of...

boisestate.edu

A reused an ordinary grocery sack, tied it into a bow becomes something between a flower and a storm cloud. Plastic is not usually invited to be poetic, but occasionally, it sneaks in any way. #Photography #PhotographicArt #EKC #Plastic #Reuse #CloseUpPhotography #BlueBag #BlueBow #PoeticPlastic

This photograph feels like my summer so far: beautiful, slightly blurred, and moving too fast to hold onto 😉 #BoisePhotography #Photography #IdahoPhotography #LandscapePhotography #ECK #FineArtPhotography #BoiseFoothills

Shawna Donahue photographs the Boise Foothills beneath a sky that seems to be drifting and remembering at once, soft clouds over bronze ridges, a landscape held between evening light and dream #BoiseFoothills #BoisePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Lensbaby #IdahoLandscape #DreamlikeLandscape #ECK

Shawna Donahue photographed the Boise Foothills before this area burned, golden ridges above the shadowed river, a landscape held briefly in light before fire changed its surface. #BoisePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Photography #Lensbaby #WesternLandscape #DreamlikeLandscape #ECK

Sagebrush at sunset, photographed across the valley from where the Claremont Fire now burns. What once felt like evening color now feels like a fragile landscape holding its breath. #BoiseFoothills #SunsetPhotography #Photography #LandscapePhotography #DesertLight #NaturePhotography

Along the Greenbelt the river flows, the shadows stretch, and the dog sets the pace. Shawna Donahue captured this very Boise kind of moment: river, trees, late light, and at least one creature who clearly believes they are leading the expedition. #BoiseGreenbelt #BoisePhotography #Photography

Kootenai Falls, Montana. Even in a low water year, the river feels impossible to hold in a frame. #KootenaiFalls #Montana #Photography #WaterfallPhotography #RiverPhotography #LandscapePhotography #NaturePhotography #Whitewater #WildWater #Photography #TravelPhotography #VisualPoetry #WaterAndStone

Wallace made I-90 go around history instead of through it. I love the repeated signs, top and bottom, tiny arrows inside a huge concrete argument. #WallaceIdaho #BlackAndWhitePhotography #RoadsideHistory #Interstate90 #I90 #HistoricPreservation #SilverValley #NorthIdaho #BlackAndWhitePhotography

Wallace, Idaho knows how to accessorize. A giant rusted top hat, vintage lettering, and enough Jules Verne energy to suggest the airship is double-parked. #WallaceIdaho #Steampunk #Photography #SignPhotography #RustAndCharm #QuirkySigns #SmallTownDetails #ArchitecturalDetails #SteampunkStyle

In Wallace, clouds slipped inside the First National Bank, a small rebellion of sky against stone. Imagination has always been bad at staying within approved architectural limits. #Photography #WallaceIdaho #TravelPhotography #HistoricArchitecture #IdahoPhotography #CloudReflections

At Bank and Sixth in Wallace, Idaho, this cat is clearly in charge. The town, the patio, the street, possibly the forested hills, all under quiet feline management. #Photography #Cats #WallaceIdaho #CatsofBluesky #StreetPhotography #SmallTownPhotograph #FelineOverlord #IdahoPhotography

Some people spend years trying to get to Harvard or Princeton. I took a back road in Idaho and arrived academically adjacent in under twenty minutes. #Idaho #RoadsideAmerica #Photography #Backroads #RuralIdaho #FoundHumor #AcademicLife #AcademicHumor #HigherEd #IvyLeagueAdjacent

Wallace, Idaho: silver boom town, Big Burn survival story, brick-built historic district, and now a cyclist haven with neon motel signs and bike wash stations. Reinvention looks good in turquoise. #Idaho #Photography #TravelPhotography #StardustMotel #WallaceIdaho #MidCenturyModern

Boise water park playground through a fisheye lens: colorful poles, big sky, and strong “tiny planet with excellent recess policy” energy. #BoisePhotography #Photography #Playground #FisheyePhotography #UrbanPlay #BoiseParks

Shawna Donahue captures urban surfing at Boise Whitewater Park, where an adjustable river wave turns the middle of the city into an unlikely surf break. No ocean, no problem. #BoisePhotoGrid #BoisePhotography #Photography #UrbanSurfing

From my film archive: Mount Olympus and Lake St. Clair, or Leewulenna, Sleeping Waters, at the end of Tasmania’s Overland Track. The lake held the mountain like a memory. #FilmPhotography #Tasmania #LandscapePhotography #MountainMonday #ECK