Jul 29, 2011 | Landscape Photography
One aspect of Bodie I always enjoyed was the evenings and night. This is when the town would be all ours again, the tourists were gone with the park being closed (this is when I would find the thieves though which got old). We decided to do star trails and what you see here is the progression over the first year. The star trail exposure was the easy part. The exterior and interior lighting was the tricky part. You can see how it got better over time with the bottom frame of the Boone Store being the best. The technique from then would not be how I would do it today except for the lighting method. It is all flash, lighting painting with flash. I would walk around and just hit the open flash button. Today it would be much easier to do with the Pocket Wizards, TTL and LCD. That’s if you could do it because like any tourist, I’m kicked out long before sunset these days.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little bit about your heritage and how to photograph it. Keep in mind everything from this week was done with film and no Photoshop. It does show you the possibilities by using old fashion photography craft. I hope that I’ve given you a little bug to “Go West Young Man, Go West” and that some day I meet up with you on the streets of Bodie!
Jul 29, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Since you can’t get up on the bluff, many look up from the town and see the water tower. Most assume it’s from the train that ran from Mono Mills to the bluff (it didn’t carry passenger, just tons of cords of wood). That tower is not for the train and if you’re like most, you won’t believe what it is for. But that water tower was for the first flush toilet in town. Yeap, all that water was to simply flush the two heads in the bottom floor!
This is the train office, not very glamorous, just a plain structure but if you’re in the right place in Bodie, you can see its roof line. What you can’t see anymore even where you’re on the bluff is the town that was on top of the bluff. Was it a big town? I don’t know that but I was present when there were digs on the bluff and they found the butcher shop and whore house foundation. I didn’t ever find much written material or photographs from up here but heard a couple of stories that always intrigued me. If you’re up at the train office bldg and you look southeast, you can see down in the ravine where Bodey first found gold and where is also died coming back one winter day with supplies to help out his sick partner. He never saw the riches nor fame his name sake town would produce.
Jul 28, 2011 | Landscape Photography
The building in the foreground is the old ice house. You ever been to Bodie, you can’t imagine they had such a thing but with the Sierra snow pack, finding ice was real simple. Storing it was too with the Ice House which is full of sawdust and other primitive insulation. The roof top you see behind it was one of the well to do home of Bodie. Bodie had quite the high society back in the day living in grand homes, home paid for on the money made making money on those digging up the money. That part of the gold camp history has always fascinated me.
The Sway Back Barn (I can never remember the real name for this because we always called it that) is something I expect every time I visit to have finally fallen to the Sierra winters. Yet it persists. Both of these images demonstrate a favorite technique I rarely talk about. That’s combining the polarizer and split grad. That combination has always produced a drama in light on the verge of its own drama that I really like. You first rotate the polarizer to remove the refletion (blue) and then move the split grad into place to finish it off. Some folks like the effect, some don’t and not that I use it on every photo, I use it a lot in Bodie.
Jul 28, 2011 | Landscape Photography
The Union Hotel is a favorite of mine, it is simply the old west personified! It is also a shadow of its former self. What many think is an awning is actually what’s left of the second story balcony where the well to do of Bodie would sit and watch life go by or stand and cheer on the 4th of July parade. Looking in the front window you can see the pool table I wrote about yesterday. And in the back, what you can see a slight hint of looking through the back window, are the transformers from the original electrical system. If you look from the back of the Union toward the cemetery, you can see a remnant of the old power poles. Back in the day, they were concerned electricity would jump the line if it weren’t straight. So they made a straight line from Green Creek Power Plant to the back of the Union. The funny thing is, the power line went up and down hills. Guess electricity doesn’t jump the line going that way. Keep in mind, this is the location for the first transmission on the planet.
Photographing the Union is think is best either with the August thunderstorms as you see above or in October. The drama in the light in August with the storms (enhanced with a split grad) is hard to ignore. The mellow, late afternoon light in October is so romantic, everything looks good. Shooting wide to exaggerate that angles works well. I have gone to Bodie with the 24PC and tried to “clean” up the angles but you know, nothing in Bodie is even close to plum so when you shoot it plum, it just looks wrong. But following the light is the key, it makes the old town just shine!
Jul 28, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Bodie was a huge town back in the day. It had the second largest population of Chinse in the US at the time. It is really hard to imagine the size of the town unless you get up on the bluff and look down. Knowing this, I went up un the bluff but as you saw on the first day’s blog, that really didn’t do much. So I took another approach. What you see here is the Main Street and what appears to be a lot of buildings all jammed up together. What you see here is what they call the Miners Union Hall down to the Boone Store. When you go to Bodie you’ll see how much topography that covers but in this view, it looks packed. When the head ranger at the time saw this photo, he said jokingly he. Was going to cite me for moving he buildings. How did I create this illusion? It was two fold. First I used the 800f/5.6 with the 1.4x and walked way down the road. Next, it shot at first light to take advantage of the hard shadows to fill in the holes. Lastly I went up the hill to look “down” on it. It was effective, the photo being used by the Park for may years to tell the story of the town.
That old Dodge parked on Main has quiet story and this is how I remember it. It is originally from Bodie and was sent to Folsom Prison to be restored. In 1981, it was in the Bridgeport 4th of July parade with Bodie employees dressed as Bodie Ghosts (see, they exist). Now a days it sits outside of the Boone Store basically rusting back to its former self. It is parked in front of the gas pumps so lends itself to being photographed. If I had a nickle for every bad HDR of the truck, I wouldn’t have to write the blog anymore! This is a single click but you might be asking about the sky. This is a typical August afternoon thunderstorm with extra drama added with a split grid. When the clouds start to turn black, I look for a foreground that still has light on it and click like mad.
Jul 27, 2011 | Landscape Photography
The funeral home, it sucks everyone in and why not, it’s just bloody cool. This is child casket and as you saw in yesterday posting, children died in Bodie. Now the location of the funeral home on the corner of Green and Main, thats always been an intersting question. When i talked to mu mom about it, she said there was no funeral home next door to where they ate lunch. When I asked Lester Bell, he just raised his eyebrows and smirked so you figure it out. The lighting is pretty basic, it’s the diffusion flat on the outside. Its simple, effective and predictable and that’s perfect.
One question I always get asked is, “Our there ghosts in Bodie?” I’ve heard a ton a stories about ghosts from China Rose to the one armed mill worker. Bodie is ghost town, it’s on the website so if the government says it’s a ghost town, there must be ghost. Are there ghosts in the cemetery or the funeral home? I have no comment.
