Ken Depue – Imagination Images of Iowa

Republished from the 2012 DiscoverAdel February Newsletter:

As the owner of both Imagination Images of Iowa and Code Electric, Ken Depue is one of those fortunate people that does not one job he loves but two.

While in high school at ADM he discovered photography. It made such an impact on him that he owned and operated Adel Photography in Adel.

In 2002 he apprenticed with A&W Electric, discovering a second career that he enjoyed. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to eventually start Code Electric.

Code Electric specializes in commercial and residential electrical work doing jobs of all sizes often taking him across the state.

An advantage of traveling was all of the town squares he saw. While running the photography shop in Adel, Ken took a panoramic of the court house. He put together the equipment and software then climbed a ladder in the middle of the street to reproduce the famous panoramic taken by Fredrick J. Bandholtz (1877 to 1963) in the early 1900’s.

The perfect shot took four attempts at 50 frames a shoot and hours of software manipulation. Eventually he discovered a workflow that he could reproduce.

This led to finding as many of the original courthouse panoramics as he could, thus Imagination Images of Iowa was born.

Due to the photos large sizes, he often receives them folded, torn, and worn from storage. Ken scans the photos, repairs the damage in his software and then researches where the photo was originally taken. He then travels to the location to reproduce the shot.

After a hundred years there are usually major changes to the areas he visits. Trees have grown up, buildings replaced or modified, and sometimes the original structures are completely gone due to tornado damage or housing projects.

Once the perfect photo is obtained, he produces an image containing the original at the top and the current view on the bottom.

Ken has collected a majority of Iowa’s courthouse photos and has plans to complete the last of them in the next year or so.

In his journey to preserve the past he records the GPS coordinates of the photo and copious notes so that a future photographer can do a third shot a hundred years from now. He often wonders who that will be.

Ken’s collection can be found and individual images purchased online at www.imaginationimagesofiowa.com. Each image has taken an average of 50 hours to complete.

If you have an old panoramic, Ken invites you to contact him at 515-208-2415.

Ken Depue
Imagination Images of Iowa
Phone: (515) 208-2415
Website: www.imaginationimagesofiowa.com 

Code Electric
Phone: (515) 208-2415
Website: www.code-elec.com