Bodie and Beyond
This will be slightly different from my usual blog post, but still allll me and my weird musings. ha! The photography gallery I belong to is starting a new zine called Focus/Zine (get it? focusing? cameras, lenses, photo nerds :-p) that is now available to the public in a bimonthly format. I am one of the editors of the zine but also contributed a story about the fieldtrip offered by Spectrum Art Gallery in the “Spectrum Snapshot” section of the first edition.
Here is the link to Focus/Zine!! Check it out and share it if you enjoy it! And hot tip - click the full screen icon to really enjoy the magazine the way it’s meant to be displayed. :)
I wanted to share the contribution I made to this blog, but also show more of the photos I took than what the zine could put in. Here is what I wrote -
“In the month of October 2024, Spectrum Art Gallery had the opportunity to go on a field trip to Bodie State Historic Park. From the Focus newsletter:
“Bodie State Historic Park is a genuine California gold-mining ghost town in Mono County, CA. During the late nineteenth century, Bodie had around 2,000 structures and a population of roughly 8,000 people. Only a small part of the town survived. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Designated as a National Historic Site and a State Historic Park in 1962, the remains of Bodie are being preserved in a state of ‘arrested decay.’”
Generally, people are not allowed to walk inside the buildings of Bodie, but after securing special photography passes, we set out for a tour in the early morning hours with two knowledgeable park rangers.
As luck would have it, the morning offered us a beautiful panorama of cloud coverage with the moon setting over the buildings. The golden glow cast over the prairie grasses from the sunrise made us linger outside before heading into the buildings.
Separated into two groups to cover more square footage, we entered the interiors, usually three at a time, to compose our shots. There were private homes, hotels, bars, a general store, a post office, and a plethora of other buildings to check out. Some highlights for me personally were the morgue, which still had caskets inside (but no bodies!), the general store with a mannequin bust in the window, and the men-only group I.O.O.F. Hall (Independent Order of Odd Fellows), which I think would be a perfect organization for me to be a part of if I were a man. Ha!
Dirt, rabbit droppings, and random items were everywhere. As stated above, the park does not clean or move anything within the buildings. The only time something moves is if there is an earthquake—and there have been a few! A jacket draped over a chair, reading glasses left on a book, vinyl records in a box in the schoolroom—relics from the past left behind after the gold dried up.
The early morning light encased these objects in dust-covered beauty. It was overwhelming to find a spot to compose a photo with so many options surrounding you. A really great problem to have as a photographer.
As the day galloped by, we ended at the stamp mill for our final tour as a whole group. There was lots of oohing and awing and chit-chatting as we walked up the different levels of the mill, capturing some “arrested decay” before packing up our gear to head to lunch.
It was really a fantastic and eye-opening trip.
Beyond Bodie, getting to know other members of the gallery as we ate and traveled together is always a highlight for me. We went our different ways to capture the fall foliage but often ended up at the same place to take photos or have dinner together. The eastern side of California is (for me, at least) not something explored often, and I loved getting to see another side of this beautiful state.
If you are on the fence about joining a field trip when they are offered, I’d encourage you to go! I have learned so much every time I have gone, and it is usually a fun mini-vacation doing something I love so much.
Keep your eyes peeled for our next field trip to Point Reyes in the next issue.
I hope you enjoyed the “snapshot” and the photographs below. Click to see the image fully and cycle through all of them. And as always, let me know what you think in the comments below!
