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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > Eureka gold mine, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
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21-FEB-2007

Eureka gold mine, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007

The last great American gold rush occurred in Death Valley in the early 20th Century. The Eureka Mine was built in 1909. Today, the tunnel into the mine is a place of broken tracks and ghostly dreams. The tunnel is not open to visitors. It was fenced off, requiring me to make this photograph through one of the openings of the chain link fence. This scene could not be seen with the eye – the entrance to the mine was too dark. Yet the sensor of a digital camera can show us things that the eye cannot. It took a one second exposure to get this much detail to appear. By pushing my lens shade up against the chain link fence, I was able to hold the camera steady enough to make this photo. The rock-strewn track enters the mine and then vanishes into blackness. The last things we see are the railroad ties, broken and skewed, just like the hopes of those who invested their money and dreams in the lonely place.

Leica V-Lux 1
1s f/3.2 at 13.7mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis06-Nov-2007 06:27
Thanks, Marcia. This image haunts me -- it represents the broken dreams and greed of those who came here to mine for gold. And the more I look at that gaping black hole, the more it makes me think of the souls who those who trashed and gutted this uniquely beautiful land.
Marcia Manzello05-Nov-2007 23:13
Masterful...V
Phil Douglis02-May-2007 18:30
Once again, Ceci, you have taken one of my images and transformed it by applying your own dedication to environmental concerns. You are right -- mining is an industry that has taken a heavy toll on the environment. We have raped the land to find wealth. We did not kill Death Valley -- nature has created its own legacy here. But we have certainly trashed it, by gouging gold and silver out of its earth and leaving our mark on the land. I saw this image as a symbol of greed. You take it further, and see it as a measure of what greed has done, and still is doing, to the earth.
Guest 02-May-2007 18:10
These pale tracks leading into a hole seem almost a metaphor for our beleaguered earth. It looks to me like a trashed planet, mouth open, with tongue lolling out in death. It's happening all over the globe as people gouge our Mother's face looking for ways to get rich. It's as though no one can recall that "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children" -- a Native American proverb that ought to be the mantra of every man, woman and child alive today. So that hopefully there won't be any more Death Valleys, just Health/Life Valleys... This is a powerful image, Phil!
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