Cheap Shots

Recently, I went on a very challenging assignment with Bennett Hall who was working on a story about the blockhouse in Adair Village for FOCUS 2009. The assignment slip mentioned I should bring lights because the building is mostly dark inside. Not knowing what to expect I packed two cameras, a spare battery, a couple flash units with optical slaves and a tripod.

Known around Adair Village as the Blockhouse, this enormous concrete structure once housed the SAGE Direction Center, a Cold War-era Air Force installation designed to defend the West Coast from Soviet nuclear attack.

We met Justus Seely, the buildings owner, and he led us through the maze of hallways, some with lights and some dark, to the War Room.

Justus Seely has tried to preserve the SAGE War Room the way it was when he and his father bought the old Adair Blockhouse in 2002. It was built for the Air Force in 1958 and formed a key part of the nation’s strategic air defenses during the Cold War.

While Justus and Bennett explored the War Room I set up the tripod and and started taking photos. The electrical system in the building is hit and miss. Some halls and rooms have light, but most are dark. I was very happy that the glass enclosed portion of the war room had some light. This photo as Justus paused to shine his flashlight on a wall was my favorite from the assignment.

Just to the left of the glass enclosed room in the photo is a chalkboard listing west coast military installations. I moved the tripod, re-framed and took a couple long exposure photos. The photos were a little plain, so I asked Justus to shine his flashlight across the board and made this photo.

This chalkboard in the War Room was used to track the status of radar installations and Air Force bases in the Portland Air Defense Sector.

It is a bit difficult to see any detail in the above photo so I moved the tripod in closer for another photo. For this photo I was thinking a red alert look might be a cool. The LED light on my key chain provided the light.

This chalkboard hangs on a wall in the War Room of th old SAGE Direction Center in Adair Village. From 1958 to 1969, this is where Air Force personnel ran training exercises for the Portland Air Defense Sector — and prepared to defend the West Coast from nuclear attack.

Before leaving the war room Bennett and I had to rattle off a few quotes from the 1960’s movie Dr. Strangelove. My favorite is “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” After the war room Justus showed us a some of the other rooms. One had this nicely painted warning on the door.

This remnant of the building’s past has escaped the souvenir hunters.

We were moving quickly at this point, the tripod was slung over my shoulder, so I dialed in a much higher ISO and asked Justus to shine his flashlight on the sign to make this photo.

Justus then asked us if we wanted to see the shelter downstairs. Of course Bennett and I said yes.

The 40,000-square-foot basement of the Blockhouse was set up as a fallout shelter in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike.

Just like the sign painted on the door I asked Justus to shine his light on the door for this photo. Rather than having the light slashing across like the previous two images we made this one with the light straight on. This door is short and I banged my camera bag, tripod and elbows each time we had to pass through. Once inside we saw boxes of survival food and water as well as a survival toilet.

Air Force brass laid up stores of Civil Defense supplies to help Adair Air Force Station survive the aftermath of a nuclear war.

The note on the assignment about the lack of light made me a bit nervous, but after looking over the images from the assignment I was pleased with the light. The only time I resorted to the flash units in my bag was to take a quick portrait of Bennett in the War Room.

Tweet This Post