Tag Archives: mining

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Brick Building, Doorway, Reflected Sky

December 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The desert sky is reflected in the windows of an abandoned brick building in the ghost town of Bodie, California

I have been to Bodie quite a few times, but I rarely go there anymore unless I think something interesting might happen with the weather. The place is often sun-blasted, with cloudless blue skies, and during the part of the year when it is most often visited it tends to be quite hot and dry. Don’t get me wrong – Bodie is a fascinating place and its story is even more interesting. I’ve visited a number of ghost towns and isolated abandoned structures in the outback of California, and the sheer scope of this ghost town sets it apart, as does that fact that California has worked to sustain it in a state of suspended decay.

We were wandering around the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and points further east of that on the final day of our five-day “aspen chasing” visit this October. Most often my plans are a bit general and/or flexible, and I like to adapt to changing conditions rather than stick to a preset shooting schedule. On this day we were surprised to find it snowing when we awoke in Mammoth Lakes, and as we left town to explore in an eastward direction we stopped to photograph dawn snow flurries over the Sierra crest. Eventually, after going a good distance out toward the Nevada border, we looped back to the north and ended up in Lee Vining, where we grabbed a (very late!) breakfast at Nicely’s. The possibility of going to Bodie was somewhere on the list of options, but when we continued to see snow falling about the town and clouds to the north and east, we decided to head out there to see what we could find. In the end, there was no snow falling in Bodie – though it had fallen there earlier that day – but it was very cold and very windy and broken clouds provided interesting and changeable light. One of my main subjects as I wandered around the town making photographs turned out to be the doors and windows on the old buildings. Perhaps ironically, given my usual lack of interest in sun-blasted Bodie, I shot this scene in nearly flat front light – but it seemed appropriate for this old and weathered building and the reflection i the old windows of the very blue cloud-filled sky.

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Recent Photographs from Bodie

November 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Almost a month ago we spent a few hours in the historic ghost town of Bodie, California on the final day of a trip to the eastern Sierra to photograph fall colors. On this day we decided to focus on a few other things, including a looping drive out to the east of the Sierra, followed by a side trip to Bodie, which came up when it looked like the weather conditions out there might be somewhat more interesting than usual.

Rather than save these up for a week’s worth of individual post, I have decided to combine them into a single post. (I have too many photographs queued up for future posts already.) I am presenting them in roughly the order that I shot them as we wandered around in Bodie. For those who may be unfamiliar with Bodie, it was the site of silver and gold mining many decades ago. There are stories of it being a fairly populous place with many “modern” amenities – but also of it being a rather rough place, which isn’t surprising given its remote location and the fact that it was a mining town. The mines gave out and the citizens gradually moved away, leaving the town almost completely abandoned. A few decades ago it was taken over by the California State Park System and it is now a state historical park that focuses on protecting and maintaining the place and making it available to visitors.

Weathered wooden walls and windows, Bodie, California

I passed this building or group of buildings on my way into the town. I have photographed this structure and, in fact, this section of the structure before. Exposed to the harsh summer and winter conditions of this high desert location, it is no surprise that the wood has been severely weathered.

The Standard Mill in the ghost town of Bodie, California

The Standard Mill is a large facility for refining ore, located across the town from the place where most of us begin our walks. To my eyes, it reminds me a lot of certain other mid-century industrial sites where I have photographed. Unfortunately – for me, but perhaps fortunately for other reason – fences surround the site and it is not possible to easily get inside and wander about without a guide. For that reason all of my photographs of the mill are from some distance.

The corrugated metal exterior of the abandoned Standard Mill, Bodie, California

This is a closer photograph of the buildings of the Standard Mill, whose angles, structure, and supporting wires fascinated me.

Bodie - Buildings Near Standard Mill — Bodie – Buildings Near Standard Mill

Old abandoned buildings line the streets of the ghost town of Bodie, California

These are among a number of buildings along the street heading to the entrance to the Standard Mill. The view here looks back across the valley in which the ghost town is located, toward higher hills, a small aspen grove, and cloud-shrouded peaks.

Windows on the front of an abandoned wooden building in the ghost town of Bodie reflect the cloud-filled sky

The squared geometry of the front of this building first caught my, along with the typical weathered condition of the wooden door, window frames, and paneling. The window reflects a distorted and blurred version of the cloud-filled sky, and underneath are hints of what is inside the windows.

The schoolhouse in the ghost town of Bodie, California

This is the view I first had of the schoolhouse, before I realized that it was, in fact, the school. The tall steeple first had me thinking it was perhaps a church. From this side, the building is backed by nothing but the open space of the high desert, highlighting the desolation of the place.

Downtown Bodie ghost town, with barren hills rising beyond

The foreground structure is the same schoolhouse building seen in the previous photograph. Here the perspective looks over the back of the school and across the buildings of the main street leading toward the mill, which is behind my camera position.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains

February 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The ruins of the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada stand above the Amargosa Valley, with the Amargosa Range and Death Valley National Park in the distance.

While there can be some moments of beautiful and colorful sunrise light at the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada – and I was there for it – this early morning light from a short time later probably gives a more true sense of what the place tends to look like during the winter months. (Even here, the high, thin clouds soften the scene a bit – it is often quite cloudless.)

From what I understand, Rhyolite sprang up in the very early 1900s after gold was discovered nearby. During the short life of the town, measured in no more than decades, it was reportedly the second largest city in southern Nevada. It featured banks (two of which are seen in this photograph), a railroad station (abandoned but still present and located behind my camera position), newspapers, an impressive school house, and thousands of residents. It was all largely abandoned in the first half of the 1900s and most of the buildings are gone, though traces of them and the old roads they lined can still be found here and there. A few large buildings in the center of the town still more or less stand, in varying states of decay. The building on the right was the Cook Bank. Another bank was located where the white walls are a bit further in the distance. The town school house is the furthest building. The whole town overlooked the Amargosa Valley, where the current boundary of Death Valley National Park lies. Beyond that, an inside the park, are the Amargosa Range and in the far distance the ridge of the Panamint Range and the summit of 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Cook Bank Ruins, Rhyolite

January 21, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The ruins of the Cook Bank in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, with barren desert hills under a pre-sunrise sky.

This was the closest to the winter solstice that I’ve visited Rhyolite, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by several things. First, the sun came up not only later, but also a bit further south along the horizon – and the light that would usually strike these ruins at sunrise was blocked for a while by a large hill that sits next to the town. Second, it was cold! Third, no one else was there at sunrise! This is a bit unusual since in the Death Valley high season (which arrives a bit later in the year), Rhyolite can be a pretty popular place… for a ghost town… in the middle of the desert… in Nevada. :-)

Because I have photographed here several times before and for the reasons mentioned above, I took a bit of a different approach to photographing the place this time. The winter light, some high clouds, and the different point along the horizon of the sun rise meant that the light was quite different from what I’ve occasionally had to work with in the past. At first I was a bit disappointed to realize that the direct dawn light was not going to strike the old Cook Bank and other nearby buildings. But when some clouds to the east obscured the direct light and high, thin overhead clouds begin to pick up color and fill in the shadows, I saw that other interesting lighting was going to make up for it. At the moment that I made this photograph, those clouds to the east (right) of my position beautifully softened what might otherwise have been some stark and harsh light on the pinnacles beyond the town. They also created an unusual and beautiful quality of light for a few moments – a reddish-pink quality from the light reflected from the clouds but with a few soft quality.

I decided to shoot from a distance with a long lens so as to control the position of the ruins against the background hills, and the longer focal length makes these hills more prominent than they would be if I shot the building with a shorter focal length from a closer position. This also allowed me to more carefully eliminate some distracting elements that invariably appear at old sites like this. (The first times I visited, access to most of the ruins was quite unimpeded. Now fences have been erected around some of them. Part of me regrets the loss of access, but the greater part of me understands that this will allow these buildings to be around longer so that more people will get to see them. I stayed behind the fences.) If you look around on the web a bit, you can find some wonderful old photographs of this town when it was a bustling place with thousands of residents, and when the Cook Bank was a very impressive and modern-for-the-time building.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mining

Brick Building, Doorway, Reflected Sky

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.