Postcards from the Creative Journey

And Now For Something Completely Different

Teacup, teacup, plate.

I invest most of my photographic capital on large subjects; the grand landscape; the American West, purple mountains majesty, dark skies, puffy clouds and really grand grandeur. But, I wonder if I can get the wheels out of the ruts and explore some new territory. If you’re voluntarily thinking about change you are ready to make the change. Stop thinking and start doing. Photographic technology is not (yet) at the point where thinking about an image will make it happen. You actually have to do something to make a photograph happen. Photographic change means trying, learning and ultimately producing some new photographs.

So it is with the project “Photographs of China.” It’s a literal thing, a photographic project completely defined by two tea cups, a plate and some black cloth illuminated by natural light. Rather than an expansive view of the landscape, the camera to subject distance was less than a foot. The project was the complete opposite of everything that makes me comfortable. It was a fun thing to do.

Are they great photographs? Well, maybe one or two are and certainly not enough to make a folio project. Did I learn something? Definitely. Did I have some fun? Oh, you bet. Learned something, had fun and made some photographs. Sounds like a successful project to me. 

Ten Lessons Learned on Photo Safari 2015

The only open door in Bodie, California

Any Project Manager worth their salt will tell you it’s important to analyze performance after the event is completed. Coaches review game film and project managers will do a “lessons learned.” You’ve read the daily reports from this years’ photo safari 2015. Here are the lessons learned.

1. Tripods are important. We spent a week photographing the mecca of American West Coast Photography - Yosemite and the Owens Valley. I saw one group of photographers using tripods when they were photographing Mono Lake and one fellow using a tripod some of the time while photographing the ghost town of Bodie. Tripods are important in digital photography because you are assured of the exact camera position should you need to make a layered photograph: The layers could be needed for focus blending or an HDR composition. Or, as I thought appropriate a layered composition to remove those pesky tourists that seem to flock to Yosemite. Oh, and the tripod really helps to make the original photograph sharp and clear. What a great side benefit.
2. This generation’s photographs of Yosemite will be different than those made in the era of Ansel Adams. The reason is simple; the cameras are different. Telephoto lenses for view cameras were not practical for use in the field. Telephoto lenses for digital cameras have incredibly long "reaches" and can provide a new view for this generation. The same place will be seen differently because of new and improved equipment.
3. Taking a week's vacation to photograph a specific location is always a crap shoot. Weather is the big variable and for this year's photography I guess we have to include natural disasters. The large forest fires in the Sierra Mountains sent their smoke into the Owens Valley, at the least providing a nicely filtered light and at worst cast a smoky pall over the landscape. 
4. California is a big place. It takes quite a while to get from point to point. It takes even longer if you are dragging a travel trailer. You can't photograph and drive at the same time. More driving means less time photographing.
5. Photographing at first light means you will have to drag yourself out of bed when there is no light and drive a long time to get in place before there is a first light.
6. Places that should look great at first light might not unlock their gate until 9:00 AM.
7. Some places shouldn't be photographed. I stopped and visited Manzanar. I did not make a photograph.
8. I made some photographs that took my breath away. Literally. Photographing at 11,000 feet above sea level will do that. I hope the photographs will take the viewer's breath away.
9. Small town breakfast cafes have the best breakfasts anywhere. The quantity and quality of all the breakfast meats available are the reason for their superiority. For this reason alone, you should overtip the waitress.
10. My goodness, the iphone excels at happy snaps. The noisy cricket was not even unlimbered during the entire photo safari. In fact, I received an email from Brooks saying he found the camera in the camper. Unused and left behind. Is more proof needed that iphones are replacing the snapshot camera? That and all the panoramic photographs and about half the other photographs shown in the blogs for photo safari 2015 were made with the iPhone5. 

Exit, Kent School

Early Morning, Kent School

An advantage to camping and photographing is being able to photograph right up until it is almost dark. And then, be able to be in the right spot to catch the early morning light. We camped in the parking lot of the Kent school (or what was left of it) in Eastern Oregon. We learned at the local café that a man bought the old school with the intention of turning it into a school for diesel mechanics. He moved his family into the school while he made changes to the building and tried to establish his school. They said a kerosene heater was the cause of the fire. Because it was so far away from any fire-fighting equipment, the school was heavily damaged. The family got out, but the building was uninhabitable.

The remote location was not a good thing for the family, but being very far away from civilization is good for photographers. At night, the only available light was starlight. It was so dark I was able to unload and load my sheet film holders in the camper, a task usually done under a light tight blanket. For those of you that have never experienced the joy of sheet film unloading and unloading in a hot camper under a couple of wool blankets, this is a big thing. You’ll have to trust me on this.

With such a dark night, sleep came easily. Until sometime in the middle of the night, our camper was buzzed by a Navy bomber. The roar of the jet engines was deafening and I was not only awakened immediately, I truly think I bounced off the ceiling of the camper. It took quite a while to get back to sleep after that.

But the next morning, the early morning light was great. The light layer of clouds filtered the light enough to soften the edges of hard shadows. We were we were ready to photograph the ruins of the Kent school.

September 11, 2015 A Fury of Photographs

Lake Tioga, morning

Today is the last day of photography on the safari. Usually a day of frenetic activity, we are trying to get the last photographs in before beginning the trip home. We returned to Yosemite and decided to concentrate on the Tioga Road because it is a spot that seems to be less photographed than the rest of Yosemite. The only photograph we could remember was an Edward Weston photograph of Lake Tenaya.

We remedied that paucity of photographs by tearing into the day as veritable photographic tornadoes. We started photographing early and with intensity. Tioga Lake and Tenaya Lake posed regally for our cameras. On our way to Tuolomne meadows we spied the East Fork and spent an hour photographing a lovely stream from many angles. 

East Fork

We could not remember any great photograph of the Lembert Dome on the east end of Toulomne meadows, so we stopped for a while to give that location some late afternoon photographic love. There still may not be any definitive photographs of that landmark, but we gave it a great try. 

Lember Dome pine tree, looking up

Panoramic View from the Lembert Dome

No, we weren’t finished either. From there we headed to Bodie, the best known ghost town in California to catch it with some late afternoon light at least until it closed at 6:00 PM. 

Not a typical view of Bodie.

Today was a huge photographic day. I had no idea this many photographs were made until I uploaded all the files to Light Room. Photo Safari ended with a sprint to the finish line.

September 10, 2015 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Lake Tenaya

Today was an experimental day. The experiment was Brooks using his electric road bike on the valley floor of Yosemite. We took off in the morning over the Tioga Pass photographing all the way. The smoke from the wildfires was evident and abundant throughout the day. The vistas usually associated with America’s crown jewel were mostly obscured by smoke. Firefighting airplanes were visible at times. Classic views of Half Dome and the Valley were very much affected by the smoke. The good news was Brooks’ bike experiment was an unqualified success and I was able to get some nice Yosemite tee shirts for the Grandchildren. Oh, and make a few photographs on the valley floor; none of which included a view of Half Dome. 

Generic Yosemite Valley Panoramic Photograph

 

 

September 9, 2015 Mono Lake

Mono Lake, what everyone sees

The town of Lee Vining overlooks Mono Lake, an inland salt water body of water. The lake is more than twice as salty as the ocean. When the high mineral content water evaporates, it forms tufa, or odd looking mineral deposits reminiscent of the hoodoos I photographed in Hell’s Half Acre. After making camp, the late afternoon sun beckoned me to make some photographs at Mono Lake.

I got to the beach just ahead of a group of photographers that appeared to be a bit more serious than hobbyists. The clue was a simple piece of gear; the camera tripod, or as I like to think of them, “analog image stabilizers.” During the entire week’s safari besides me, the group at Mono Lake and one fellow at the ghost town of Bodie no one else had tripods. This, in the cradle of American Landscape Photography shows how far photography has evolved from the classic approach of only a few decades ago. 

All the photographers got to the beach and pointed their cameras out to the lake. Me too. Then I thought a bit and remembered to turn around and look behind me. There were some nice photographs there that did not include the lake. 

A different view at Mono Lake

 

September 9, 2015 Clouds

In short, clouds are few and far between here. Most of California is a desert and what isn't a desert is suffering a drought. Moisture, an essential ingredient for clouds is in short supply. What this means for a photographer (such as myself) that wants to photograph the landscape is that approximately one third of my photographs will be blank. This is not really exciting.

What we do have in the Owens Valley is smoke. Smoke from forest fires on the other side of the Sierras spills over the mountains into the valley. It cuts visibility dramatically. This is also not good from both an artistic and health standpoint. We've adjusted our plans to avoid the smoke by heading farther afield, but that takes a lot more time from the day's activities, namely making photographs. We decided to break camp in Bishop and move to Lee Vining because it was further North and at a higher elevation.

The daily blogs have suffered both because of the added travel time the spottiness of wi-fi coverage and technical limitations. There is only so much time in the day and blogging was taking up too much time. Bummer. I'd like to share the experience as it happens, but it's more important to spend time creating. Next week, you'll hear some good stories.

The other cloud I could really use is a computer cloud. The biggest pain is dealing with the limitations of the trusty iPad when manipulating blog posts. "Working" and doing what I would like to can only happen when I have everything synched up in the cloud. This is something I will be doing after I get back from safari. 

September 8, 2015 Bristlecone Pines

Bristlecone Pines near the Schulman Grove

The first photograph I purchased was a photograph of a Bristlecone Pine by Cole Weston. When the opportunity to photograph these ancient trees arose, I jumped at the chance. We took off from the floor of the Owens Valley and headed up to the Schulman Grove of Bristlecone Pines. This is the forest that is shown on all the maps and is frequently visited by tourists. We photographed along a couple of trails. After lunch we asked the Ranger if there were other groves. She mentioned the Patriarch Grove a mere twelve miles further up the mountain had some more Bristlecone pines. A short video in the visitor center convinced me the Patriarch Grove was the best place to photograph. She said it would take us an hour to travel the twelve miles. 

Root detail, Schulman Grove

It did. It was the longest and roughest stretch of "unimproved" road Brooks and I have travelled in a long time. But the reward was great. These ancient trees are growing out of rocks. We were alone at 11,300 feet above sea level among these "young” (1500 years old) trees. A cloud or two actually appeared to liven up a few compositions. 

Patriarch Grove

The trip back from Patriarch Grove to Lone Pine was harrowing as we made the 7,500 vertical descent (remember those unimproved roads?) with rapidly fading light was quite lovely – at least until it got completely dark. Photography is never convenient.

Part of the road down from Patriarch Grove, almost straight and level.

September 7, 2015 Cerro Gordo

 

A good motto that covers photography, too.

When speaking of California ghost towns, one always hears of Bodie, California. Everyone has photographs of Bodie. I wanted something a bit different, so I was happy to find this ghost town, almost by accident. I saw a video of jet planes flying through the Panamint Valley on the internet. I did a google search to find the Panamint Valley was located at the southern end of the Owens Valley. It was too far from our base camp of Bishop to conveniently photograph. But while making this determination I "discovered" the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. A little more digging showed that Cerro Gordo might be a good photo opportunity. Further research showed it was quite a climb (about 4,000 feet) above the nearest town. The road was in very good shape for a dirt road and we saw why. Just above Cerro Gordo we could see a cell phone tower. All the road improvements were made for easy maintenance access to the cell tower.

 

The Road to Cerro Gordo

Cerro Gordo was abandoned and untouched for decades because in pre-cell phone days it was so unreachable. It came into the hands of some people that wanted to restore and preserve it. They put their money and efforts into making the town presentable to the public. In terms of abandoned industrial sites there was quite a bit of equipment and hand tools still around to see. The caretaker took us around for about an hour explaining the realities of the silver and lead miners in the town. We then went about and photographed undisturbed for several hours.

 

The Mine Head

 

A panoramic view of Cerro Gordo

September 6, 2015 Chidago Canyon

We started out south of Bishop cruisin' some dirt roads in search of something to photograph. We pretty much came up empty, but we found a lot of places that didn't need to be photographed. We headed out of town on US 6, a couple thousand miles from Massachusetts (we know, because the sign said so). Brooks remembered a place called Chidago Canyon, about eighteen miles north of Bishop. We headed there and found it to be one of those places that no one really knows about but is amazingly wonderful. It reminded me of the little arroyo in Utah from a few years ago, but it was pink, not grey.

Chidago Canyon is not very wide

 

Chidago Canyon in the sun

We photographed there for a couple of hours and then stumbled upon Deer Springs Road. We followed that road for a few miles and came upon some gnarled pine trees in the rocks. We took advantage of the serendipity and spent some time photographing there.

 

Just off Deer Springs Road

From there, it was back to Bishop for either a late lunch or an early dinner. Because we liked the Chidago Canyon so much, we tried to come back and photograph it very late in the day. On our way back to Chidago, we stopped at a small roadside State Park. The draw for this park was the number and quality of its petroglyphs. It took us quite a while to find them, but they were pretty spectacular if you were into the whole ancient aliens theories.

Lots of Petroglyphs on this rock

See the Lunar Lander on the middle rock?

Chidago Canyon was a different looking place in the early evening. 

Chidago Canyon, evening

As we lost the light for the day, we headed back to Bishop detouring for a quick survey of an abandoned pumice mine. We don't think the Pumice mine will be worth a return trip. 

A Half Hour for Five Dollars?

How can you NOT photograph this wall?

You can’t photograph all the time, can you? During our safari to Wallace, Idaho (the center of the Universe, by the way – which, of course, I’ll probably blog about sometime soon) we were photographing the back of a building and saw a sign so brazen we had to take some time out and visit the Oasis Brothel. The five dollar admission fee for a half hour was quite a bargain. Imagine our astonishment that the admission fee was for a tour of Wallace’s most famous (notorious?) brothel.

It was by far the most bizarre non photographic activity during a photo safari that we have experienced. Well, we’re on safari by now, so I hope we will have another memorable adventure or two this week.

I could say more, but just google “The Oasis, Wallace Idaho” and you can learn about all we saw. 

Alabama Hills – Not in Alabama, not Hills September

The Alabama Hills - or part of them, at least.

On the road again, but I'm not sure if it's the Canned Heat Version or the Willie Nelson version. I was awake about twenty hours in making the journey from North Carolina to Bishop, California. The drive from Reno was much longer than normal because we were forced off the interstate because of high winds and had to take "old" 395 from Reno to Bishop. The headwinds made it a lot longer than it should have taken. Or at least, that's what I'm claiming. But, we were happy to get here and that's great.

Things are a bit different here. All those dramatically dropping gasoline prices have yet to reach the eastern part of California. $4.69 for regular was the cost in Lee Vining, California. Ouch.

Here's a happy snap from the overlook at Mono Lake.

Yes, we eventually wound up on the road below. It's a long way down.

I woke up this morning just before dawn darn time change jet lag) and decided after a short discussion to head out just to look around the Alabama Hills and come back and get a late breakfast. We headed through Bishop, stopped at the Schat's Bakery for some baked goods that were exceptional and headed south toward the Alabama Hills. Relying on Brooks' memory, we missed the turn to the Alabama Hills and figured this out a half hour later. We eventually got to the Alabama Hills with only about an hour of "good light" left. Alabama Hills is impressive. It goes on for miles and is an amazing jumble of huge boulders. We will definitely return and have a go at it a bit earlier in the day.

When we were no longer satisfied with the light, we did some exploring and then headed into Lone Pine, CA for some lunch. After lunch we headed to the Mt. Whitney Portal. It was a spectacular drive to the trail head. Maybe we will go back after the Labor Day Weekend hikers and such head home and hopefully have the place to ourselves.

Photographic locations are like people. There are "morning people" and those other misguided types. On this safari, because it looks like we will be doing grand landscape photographs a lot of our efforts will happen during the "golden hours" of the day; a couple hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset. We'll see how this works out.