More info...
The Owens Valley Gettogether / Workshop is coming soon.
It happens from October 5 to 9.
In the past years we arranged the trip in mid October and almost always got at the tail end of fall colors around June Lake and at the high plains between Mono Lake and Bridgeport.
Well, guess what! This year we may get lucky! At the moment aspens at the highest elevations around Mammoth Mountain have started to turn yellow. That MAY mean that we will be in the Owens Valley at max fall colors this year! Personally I have never seen the aspens ablaze with color between Mono Lake and Bridgeport. This year it may happen.
Also, as you may know the financial problems of California may force the closure of many state parks - if Arnold gets his way. This includes the ghost town of Bodie.
For almost 10 years I have researched the lives of many of the people who immigrated to America in the 1880s and tried to make their fortunes in Bodie. Actually I have become completely obsessed with the place and want to spend several days there this October.
If you have never been to Bodie be sure to visit the cemetery and read the haunting inscriptions on the markers left over many of the people who rest there. After that go look around in the buildings and empty dusty streets.
A few facts about Bodie.
In Bodie (in 1880) after a great rain storm part of the side of the mountain caved in. It exposed a vein of pure gold in one end and pure silver in the other. The vein was over 2 feet wide. It stretched almost half a mile.
Essayers in San Francisco had to test the gold several times because they had never seen gold this pure.
In 1880 Bodie was the third largest city in California after San Francisco (1), Stockton (2).
Over 10,000 people lived there.
Along Main street there were 85 bars and saloons.
There was a China Town.
In Bodie you could get a meal of the same culinary standard as was possible in San Francisco.
Property taxes from Bodie (levied on houses, horses, chickens, gold watches etc.) were collected and paid for the construction court house in Bridgeport.
You must see this court house! It is the oldest in California and is a jewel of late 1800 architecture!
There were three roads going into Bodie. They were all toll roads!
50 cents for a guy on a horse (each way), 25 cents for a cow (one way ticket), 5 cents per chicken, etc etc...
Thus started California's second gold rush, complete with all the wild stories and events and the good and the bad people we have seen on Western type movies .
A little girl wrote the following in her diary after hearing that she and her family were moving to Bodie:
"Goodbye God! We are going to Bodie!"
Don't photograph Bodie as just another pile of old lumber. Instead reveal some of your thoughts about the feelings, hopes and dreams which were alive in Bodie during the late 1800s.
Besides Bodie you will find Mono Lake incredibly photogenic. If you have a four wheel drive and don't mind a few "California Stripes" on the sides of your car, head to the back of Mono Lake. If you are lucky you will find untouched sand dunes there.
Lundy lakes of course has great fall colors as well, AND has a large engineering network of Beaver dams. ...
Lee Vining Canyon where some people will be camping is just a few miles from the back entrance to Yosemite Valley... No introduction needed there...
The moral of the story is:
Bring more film than you think you will use. Perhaps you may want to bring a 35mm, a 6X6 camera or sheet film - color - just in case - if you want to bring home a few colorful proofs that you were in the Owens Valley when colors went crazy.
Best color photography? Perhaps before daybreak or after sunset???
his is primarily a Gettogether. However we will have print discussions and there will be handouts about technical as well as philosophical issues in photography.
The world has seen enough photographs of rocks and dead trees. How do we move forward and "see" and reveal new ideas and subject matter?
That should be the emphasis of this gathering!
Be sure to let me know if you are coming.
Per Volquartz
volquartz (at) volquartz.com
