Photographing Fall Colors and Rocket Stove Flames – Part 1 The EcoZoom team recently took a trip to the farmlands outside of their US based offices in Portland, OR for a fall rocket stove photo shoot. A sunny but crisp day graced the team with the perfect conditions for the shoot, but the real success came from the property we were allowed to shoot on. Download the EcoZoom Desktop Background:                    1200 x 1024                 1200 x 800 It was Friday afternoon in late September, the sun was shining bright and motivation to keep working on such a nice day was waning. I’m pretty sure everyone knows the feeling, some might call it Beer Thirty. Instead of cracking a cold one we decided to go do some reconnaissance and find a property or location near our Portland based US headquarters that could work well to host or upcoming fall photo shoot. So we hit the windy farm-lined roads of the west hills of Portland to find the perfect location to capture the EcoZoom rocket stove in all its glory. When we reached the edge of the farm country, the first property we came across looked amazing. There were two old wooden barns that looked weathered but still functional, a huge old red house with white trim that stood tall at the back of a large lawn with towering oak and walnut trees in the yard. Behind the house stood a 5ft tall and 15ft wide wood pile that was stacked with precision that wasn’t going to suffer a collapse or failure. Inside each of the old barns sat a tractor. One that still looked functional and another that looked to be retired. Sun beams shined through the canopy of the trees, lush green grass stood tall at our feet, moss was growing where it could on the surrounding structures, and yellow lichen looked like paint splatters on the wooden barn beams. Everything looked great, but just like in baseball, we didn’t swing at the first pitch and decided to see what other properties were in the area.

The weather and setting were both stunning for our fall EcoZoom rocket stove photo shoot

We hopped back in the car and drove slowly past more properties on an old single lane road, probably creeping out all the residents in the neighborhood. We found locations and settings that looked like they could work but nothing compared to our first find. It was the perfect location for our EcoZoom rocket stove photo shoot. We drove back to the original residence we found and parked the car at the start of the driveway. The walk up the driveway to the house was long and made approaching the house a little ominous. Once there, we knocked a few times but no one answered. We snooped around the property a bit and looked for any signs of life but it appeared we had missed the owner of the house. We walked back to the car, found a pen and piece of paper and wrote a lengthy note describing exactly what our intentions were with our photo shoot, asking that the owner of the house call us back to talk about if it was a possibility. As we drove away we weren’t certain we would hear back from the owner of the house and driving back out didn’t sound like fun given the time it took. We were a little dejected but tried to remain hopeful. As we neared our offices our cell phone rang… “Hello?” “Hello, I’m returning your call about the note you left at our house this afternoon. It would be fine if you want to stop by and take photos sometime. When do you think you will come by?” "How about tomorrow afternoon?" "That works fine, I'll be here. If I don't answer the door it's because I'm out back picking up walnuts." To be continued in next week’s EcoZoom blog post…     About the Author: Tom Pritchard is an EcoZoom employee and likes to cook outdoors with his EcoZoom rocket stove on camping trips or sunny days. You can email him directly at tom@ecozoomstove.com.