Zane Paxton | profile | all galleries >> Galleries >> Bodie Ghost Town March 2007 | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
To more powerfully capture the essence of a place photographically, I am refining a new approach.
This disciplined approach involves establishing key aspects of a place to guide the act of photographing it through an iterative inquiry into what is unique and special about a place. It starts by asking questions, exploring, looking for common threads and even anomalies. I listened to the Rangers tell stories of the place, studied the artifacts and read the brochures, all of which started to paint a picture of the place that went beyond first impressions or the preconceived notions that I brought with me. This is an iterative process that continually asks questions and then integrates insights and then starts all over again and again. Armed with insights I then tried many different viewpoints and evaluated the successes or misses as I went; many times I would reshoot to “work” a scene until I had achieved a better level of clarity before moving on.
Bodie State Historic Park, California
Some Insights |
---|
Cleverness and ingenuity was evident in the innovative machinery and how it was used. |
Universal Aspects of Ghost Towns |
Arrested time at the point it went bust Decay Chaos & scattered disarray Abandoned |
Key Aspects Specific to Bodie |
High desert Remote location Gold rush boom and bust town Lingered long after the bust with new cultural & historical changes integrated into the fabric of Bodie over time Interiors are in better shape than the outside with a treasure trove of intact artifacts (not so for many other ghost towns) Was a very large town; in its heyday, it was the 2nd largest town in California after San Francisco Technological innovation: Electrical power and power distribution to run sophisticaed heavy machinery Gasoline was delivered in cans; they reused the cans as a building material Winters were horrendous |
Interpretive and Expressive Strategies: |
Presented as a photo-essay |
comment | share |
Guest | 09-Jan-2008 19:41 | |
Melissa B. | 11-May-2007 23:51 | |
Melissa B. | 11-May-2007 23:48 | |
Jack D Ward | 10-Apr-2007 16:08 | |
Kraig | 28-Mar-2007 15:58 | |
Martin Brettle | 28-Mar-2007 06:59 | |
Yiannis Pavlis | 27-Mar-2007 12:16 | |