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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > Dawn creeps in, Bodie State Historic Park, California, 2006
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21-OCT-2006

Dawn creeps in, Bodie State Historic Park, California, 2006

Instead of photographing the Bodie ghost town bathed in a golden dawn, I chose here to shoot two of its buildings waiting in the shadows as the dawn moves slowly over the mountain towards it. Both the town and the dawn are implied, rather than described. The buildings appear to be huddled together in the darkness, a study in vulnerability. It is both ironic and appropriate that they stand next to a fire shed – a place where the water buckets were kept in case of a blaze. Fire actually wiped out 90 per cent of Bodie in 1932.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
1/250s f/4.0 at 63.0mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time21-Oct-2006 07:12:02
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ50
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length63 mm
Exposure Time1/250 sec
Aperturef/4
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.66
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis06-Nov-2006 18:41
Light as symbolism comes into play here, Ai Li. The light on the hill here is warm and promises to awake this ghost town that huddles next to it. Yet as you say, the golden light plays a dual role. It is also an ironic symbol of fire. And it was fire that brought Bodie to its end. The fire shed next to the buildings is a grim reminder of that fact.
AL06-Nov-2006 10:01
It's quietly waiting for its time of each day. Waiting to glow beautifully under the light and be remembered... It'd sad to see it as burning in fire under the golden light, a tragic hint of the past.
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