Jul 26, 2011 | Landscape Photography
This is what it was all about! At the top of the frame you can see the 40 stamps on the Standard Mill. They went up and down smashing the gravel to loosen the gold which would then come down the table. Once on the table, they would pour Mercury on the pulverized material because the gold would stick to the Mercury. All the rest of the material would flush down through the system. Then, the mercury/gold was taken to a room where the Mercury was heated and boiled off leaving the gold. Life expectancy for these works wasn’t very long. This was a very inefficient gold recovery method. It was a hard life.
Photographically, the photo was pretty simple, at least when the thunderstorms are going through. You can take a tour of the Mill so you can get to this location inside. In August when we have the afternoon thunderstorms, they bounce the light in the windows lighting really nicely. If you look at the photo long enough you might wonder where that light in the right foreground is coming from. That’s flash, an old SB-24 bouncing off the wall behind me. I’m in rear curtain sync and using the light to simply even out the light in the room so the end can travel wherever it wants to. This is a photo you can take while on the tour if you plan.
Jul 25, 2011 | Landscape Photography
When I first visited Bodie, the angle had its wings. Today I hear it’s worst then what is pictured here. When my mom visited Bodie in the 40’s, Ella Cain was selling many of the artifacts that were left in the town (since the Cain family owned the whole town back then). Since 1969 it has been protected but that hasn’t stop theft and vandalism which is sad. One time I busted two folks coming out of the Hoover House with a bunch of stuff they thought they should take back with them. While they were written up by the ranger, nothing came of it. My point? This is a place where photographers need to set the standard, be part of the solution and not part of the problem. If the sign says stay out, stay out! Respect what is left so it will be there tomorrow for the next photographer. Take your time, wait for the folks to go buy, enjoy the location and wait for the light. You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn. Like read the grave marker here, this is where a 3yr little girl is buried. Bodie and the times where hard!
Jul 25, 2011 | Landscape Photography
The Hoover House, yeap, that’s my great cousin. My grandfather came up to see him while he ran the Standard Mill 1900 – 1902 which is why my family first start visiting the eastside. Hoover, that name might ring a bell with you. No, not the vacuum guy, the president guy. Yeap, this is Hubert Hoover’s brother. He left Bodie to start the school of mines at Stanford.M/p>
This building is located literally right in front of the Standard Mill. Today it is hard to understand what that means. My mom told me that when she came to Bodie as a little girl, the constant noise of the stamp mill could be deafening at times. Having your home right in front a 40 stamp mill, I can’t imagine how you’d have a conversation. I interviewed Lester Bell back in the 90’s and he told me that as long as the folks heard those stamps, they knew everything was ok because gold was being processed.
You can walk right up to the Hoover House so making this photo is real simple. With that white picket fence, I waited until the sun had left the house but was still on the hillside (you can see it on the bluff in the left corner). I did that because I didn’t want the white fence, which is the closet item, to be brighter then the house itself. I shot with a polarizer because I wanted the blue sky reflection removed from the side of the building. What does that mean? I wanted that great warm, Sierra tanned brown to come out in the wood and the polarizer removes the blue reflection coming from the sky. Remember, this is a straight scan from the the film. What you see is what I saw and captured. Oh, was there underexposure? This is Moose here, what do you think?
Jul 25, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Bodie State Historic Park is simply an amazing piece of our history! It’s actually part of my family history. There seems to be an incredibly number of photographers coming up to the eastside this summer and rightfully so, heading to Bodie. It is in my backyard and a location I’ve been visiting since 1959. My family goes back in the town to 1900. So to say we have a little history there is putting it mildly. With so many folks coming up, with many asking me for suggestions, I thought I’d blog a little bit about it.
Back in the early 90’s, I was co-leader in a workshop series that taught at Bodie. During that time, I literally had the keys to the town and with the workshop, had access you normally can’t have. I even wrote a book on Bodie (never published) so I have a little insight in the town to share. I went through the thousands of images I have of Bodie, looking at what I should share and how I can help photographically and this is what I came up with. I scanned in 35mm images from the early ninties to illustrate the week. I did that because what you see is what I saw and captured. The images are straight scans, there is no Photoshop applied like I do to “modern” landscapes. You could easily call it all, old fashion photography. The reason? I wanna talk history and light and using them both to preserve part of our heritage. So here we go!
When you enter Bodie, all you’re seeing is about 15% of the original town. The hospital, racetrack and nearly the entire west end of town is now empty meadow. Two fires took out the majority of the town. The photo is looking down on the Cain House from up on Bodie Bluff. You can’t get up to the top of the bluff, that’s closed to the public. Shot with a 800f5.6 with a 1.4x just as the sun shot over the bluff (you look hard, you can see my shadow as I was jumping during the shot). This is really the key to shooting at Bodie, waiting for the light. No matter the time of day, the time of year, there is photography to be had if you just work the light.
Bodie during its day was the technological hub of the world! You wouldn’t guess that today looking at it in its “arrested state of decay,” but a lot of what we enjoy today like transmitted electricity was done first at Bodie. Hopefully I’ve caught your attention and grabbed your imagination and you’ll come back all week as we explore this treasure.
Jul 12, 2011 | Landscape Photography
OK, so when rocks are just part of the photograph and not the main element, what changes? With the rocks now being smaller elements in the frame, the light has to play across the whole scene and not just the rocks. While this doesn’t sound like something different, it is and treating otherwise might mean your landscape images just aren’t as successful. The success come from thinking B&W, permitting the highlights in the water turn to a shade of gray matching the rocks. That makes the elements meld together making the photograph work.
Now this rock in the lower left corner is an old friend, what I call ass crack rock. It lives up at Jordan Pond in ME. Being so close with a wide lens, this rock which is little bit larger then a football is literally the cornerstone to the photograph. It is not the subject but it’s the anchor point that permits the eye go into the frame, wonder around, come back and wonder around again. This is a very common way I use rocks in my landscapes.
What’s the one thing different in the rocks in the top two photos from those in the bottom two?
They are all wet! And how did they get wet? Me! I often carry a bucket when I’m heading to a stream to shoot because there is nothing more nasty in a photograph then a draw rock. When you come upon a scene and can frame up your shot thinking all the rocks are wet and then right before your click, splash or pour water on them, you would be surprised how rocks can become your best friend. When do you leave rocks dry, when do you get them wet, use this light or that light? There is no single blog posting that will help with that one. Once you explore them more using these ideas you will find those answers for yourself.
Jul 12, 2011 | Landscape Photography
You have any idea how many disappointed viewers are coming to this site today because of that title? heheee. In landscape photography, rocks or boulders are often an essential element in our photographs. Now there are ugly rocks, purty rock, round rocks and boring rocks and each one can make a great photo. How do you do that though? There are actually a number of things you can do make the photograph better. Let’s start out with of course light.
In these top to images, you see rocks in real soft light. Everything looks great is soft light. Can you see the difference in the two images though when it comes to the shape of the rock? The top image, the rock looks round because of the overall shape of the rock captured by the fisheye lens. The next image, shadows give the rocks shape. Shape gives the rock character and character makes the viewer look at your rocks (does that ever sound bad). But that’s the game, getting the viewer to look at your….(you were thinking I was going to say rocks there, huh) your image.
Now we change the quality of our light and the shape of our rocks change as well. Here, with light just a couple of hours old, the edge of the shadow is very hard. Now we’re more dependent on the actual shape of the rock to communicate its shape rather then using the suggestive quality of soft shadows or lens selection. And that’s OK, we can make those work for us as well. Do you see how?
Putting the “subject” rock against a background and then using the hard edge of the shadow helps to make the shape and rock stand out. Now in all of these examples, the rock is the subject and the landscape is just the stage filling in the blanks telling the story of where the rock lives. The next problems many have photographing rocks is thinking they are dead and while technically that’s the case, that’s not how we should think about them in our photograph. It’s up to us to give them life and when we do that, we give life to our entire photograph.
