Black and white photograph of the courtyard of the New York’s Museum of Modern Art, photographed through windows of the museum.
Sticking with the urban New York theme for at least one more day, this is another photograph shot from a window in the Museum of Modern Art and looking out over a courtyard and architecturally busy urban scene combining older brick and stone facade buildings with more modern and taller buildings.
There are subtle (or perhaps not so subtle?) reflections in the window through which I made the photograph. These reflections are one reason, though not the only one, that I decided to render this as a black and white image – some of the shadows had colorations that did not work for me. To my mind, this photograph is related to some others that I’ve made featuring views of and through the windows of modern buildings, including this photograph from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Afternoon light reflects on the surface of the Pacific Ocean beyond the Point Reyes lighthouse.
(Some of the following is repeated from a previous post of the same photograph in a color version.) Although our trip to Point Reyes was not primarily to do photography, somehow I ended up bringing back quite a few photographs! This photograph was made from the iconic overlook at “the point” and right above the long stairway down to the historic lighthouse. On this afternoon high clouds were streaming in from the Pacific and casting a mottled pattern of light and shadows on the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
This spot is often completely socked in by clouds and/or extremely windy and cold. However, this was perhaps the most benign afternoon I’ve experienced there. The temperatures were very comfortable – we were a bit too warm on the walk to the point. The sun was out, and the wind was nearly still at times.
I wasn’t certain when I made the exposure of whether it would end up being a black and white or a color photograph. I’m still not sure! I’m sharing the color version first, but a black and white rendition will follow shortly.
Evening light in a burned section of the forest on the floor of Yosemite Valley.
I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, so I figure I’ll post it now. I made it last fall – on Halloween, actually! – during a fall color trip to the Valley. Late on my final evening I finally stopped and walked out across the old terminal moraine that crosses the lower Valley not far upstream from Pohono Bridge. (When you drive into the Valley, the road splits, and before long you’ll see the south end of this feature to your left as you go up a short climb.) I started at the north end and as I walked south looking for a photograph it was a very quite, still, and cold evening.
I finally found a spot where I could go down the lower side of the hill just a bit and find a relatively clear shot through the trees that wasn’t blocked by foliage closer to my position. This area has been burned, and I assume that it is the result of one of the management burns that often occur late in the season. These fires attempt to strengthen the forest by reintroducing the natural process and cycles of fire. The result is interesting charring patterns along the lower portions of the trees, temporary burned undergrowth, and then as the recovery takes place a much more open and airy sort of forest as you see in this photograph.
Black and white photograph of the ruins of an abandoned mining cabin high in the Panamint Mountain Range of Death Valley National Park.
There are a number of things that make Death Valley National Park, to the best of my knowledge, rather unique. One is the extensive history of human habitation inside the park boundaries, quite a bit of which is visible – though some takes a bit more effort and attention to spot. The history of mining in the park is well-known, and many of the icons of the park have connections to this history. If you visit Furnace Creek, for example, you cannot miss the displays of old wagons and so forth used to move ore out of the Valley. It doesn’t take a lot of careful study to figure out that many park roads originated in an era of prospecting and mining. There are several well-known examples of structures left over from that era in and around the park, too.
It is largely because of this history that many areas of this national park are (or have been – some are now reverting to wilderness status) accessible by gravel road or four-wheel-drive routes. I would argue that you can’t really get to know this park if you just stick to the paved roads and the points of interest that they access. If you drive any of these other routes and keep your eyes open you will often be surprised by the left overs from relatively recent mining and prospecting, much of which isn’t really written about or described in the usual guides to the park. (And I’m not going to offer specific details about where to find such places here, since I don’t want to be even a little bit responsible for damage to them. If you do visit, treat them with care and respect.)
As I drove along a gravel road in one of the many mountain ranges of the park, returning from a site that is somewhat well-known, I began to notice evidence of fairly recent mining and prospecting. Faint tracks depart from the main “road” and cross valleys and hills, here and there tailing piles and mine entrances are visible, and sometimes you come across old structures such as cabins, storage bunkers, or wooden towers above mine entrances. I spotted the ruins of this old cabin above the road at one point and decided to walk up and investigate.
I’m almost always surprised at how “modern” many of the traces found at these places seem to be. I guess I am expecting something from the 1800s, but quite a few of these places look like they were build and occupied much later than that. I find modern things like linoleum flooring or modern-looking nails or electrical wire in many of them. There obviously isn’t much left of this cabin now, but from the detritus lying around near it and the form and materials found here, it must have been a reasonably comfortable place to live. As I walk around such places I often try to imagine what it must have been like to wake up every morning in this silent desert and head out for another day of physical labor.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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