photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > High and dry, Rhyolite, Nevada, 2007
previous | next
22-FEB-2007

High and dry, Rhyolite, Nevada, 2007

The ghost town of Rhyolite is just outside of Death Valley National Park. We found this rusting sign on the desert floor there -- an appropriate symbol for a place that gets less than two inches of rain a year. When visiting abandoned places, always look beyond the ruins themselves. Search for discarded things of symbolic value that may be help you tell your story. This sign certainly did. I moved my camera down low to partially obscure the sign with a bare desert plant. There is not much nourishment here for vegetation, either.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/200s f/5.6 at 17.6mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Phil Douglis11-May-2007 01:09
Glad to see you beginning to explore this gallery, Suwanee. You can say so much with so little. This sign says as much about this ghost town as the ghostly ruins themselves. The lack of water has always played a role in the demise of desert towns, but this one died when boom went bust.
Guest 11-May-2007 00:45
This image is haunting. The message is stern as if this is what caused death and destruction of this place. Even the font and colors of the text hold meaning.
Phil Douglis02-May-2007 18:14
You always manage to see larger political meanings in my work, which is very rewarding. If my photographs can help make others think about the issues they may represent, they will be serving a good end. I am not a prophet -- I don't know what the future may bring. But I do know what happened in the past. And this image tells that story in a way that can be applied to the future by people who are able to see as you see, and think as you think.
Guest 02-May-2007 18:03
I have another title for you, Phil: prophet. So many of your photos capture transitional details, and this one is no exception. I have begun to realize, given the current political/biological trajectories of mankind, and the rise of huge populations like China, that the next great battle, the next "war of the worlds," will be over clean drinking water. Here lies a rusted bit of proof that this catastrophe has already visited western America, and that if we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat history. I love the last bit of sunlight on this small relic and the rust gradually taking over the metal. Wonderful reminder!
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment